The Fifth Year
by Miss Starfire
Summary: SEQUEL TO THE FOURTH YEAR. The greatest suffering a parent can know is the loss of a child, and Tony Stark and Pepper Potts-Stark are about to experience first-hand what this painful journey truly means for their lives. Story 7 of 8 of The Last Chronicles.
1. Prologue

**Summary:** SEQUEL TO THE FOURTH YEAR. The greatest suffering a parent can know is the loss of a child, and Tony Stark and Pepper Potts-Stark are about to experience first-hand what this painful journey truly means for their lives. Story 7 of 8 of _The Last Chronicles_.

**Standard disclaimer for all my stories:** My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IMAA stories :) I don't own IMAA. My stories are better viewed by using the "half screen" option of FFNET

**THIS IS A SEQUEL TO THE FOURTH YEAR.** Start with _The Last Month_, then _The Last Summer_, then _The First Year_, _The Second Year_, _The Third Year_, _The Fourth Year_ and just read your way here.

**READ THOSE FIRST OR BE FOREVER CONFUSED!**

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**The Fifth Year**

**Prologue**

Even the weather was betraying her today. Although it should have not surprised her that everything was against her this morning, it had actually taken her by surprise. The day had started out icily cold, cloudy, rainy and gloomy – just as her heart and soul felt. Yet, before it had been time to leave the penthouse, Mother Nature had done a 180º on her. The sun had come up, the skies had cleared, and the birds sang; even the rain, in its wake, had left behind a triple set of bright, colorful rainbows. All in the month of December!

No one seemed to understand her pain, not even Mother Nature. Or perhaps it was just that no one other than her cared.

Then again, believing that no one was hurting as much as her was a lie – a disrespectful one, at that. Her son had been loved by so many people besides her, and every single one of them was here today to say goodbye to the little boy. She had silently thanked every single one of them by simply returning the gaze full of disbelief and sadness that everyone sported in their eyes with one of her own. She had a lot of grief to give, and plenty of sadness to go around. What she lacked, however, was the will to speak, to wail, to _love_.

Even in the depths of her never-ending despair, her mind fought for an opportunity to be heard. It wanted so desperately to point out that she was not the single most affected person in this entire ordeal. There was one other person, the other half that had made her son become a reality in her life, who was also suffering at the same lengths as her. Even if he had been able to make all the arrangements; even if he had been the only voice of the family for now; even if he still had enough sanity to organize the event and not break down crying like she had, that did not mean that his heart was not as broken as hers.

None of that meant that he was not in bone-deep pain.

She saw it in the way he stared into nothingness when he believed that no one was looking. She saw it in his slow, defeated gait, which no longer spoke volumes of his pride and self-confidence that he had before radiated in loads with every step he took. His electric blue eyes no longer sparkled. His voice was strained and almost mechanical. His responses were short, calculated and devoid of any _love_.

_Love._

Maybe, just maybe, he had also forgotten how to love.

Or so she had thought and hoped, for she felt it unfair that she could no longer reciprocate the feelings that had once fueled the fire within her; the same fire that had driven her to move mountains to be with him. Sometimes, she was certain that he had given up on her as well, even if only ten days had passed since their perfect world had been shattered. But, every time, she had been wrong.

Sometimes, she had been certain, that her genius boy had finally had enough of her disinterest, her apathy, her distant form. She had sworn on her life many times that Tony no longer cared for her, that the loss of their child was so great that he blamed her for it, albeit irrationally, but she hoped that he did. Sometimes, she had prayed for Tony to suddenly forget who she was and what they were, if only to not feel guilty about her lack of interest in what they had once been, what they had once accomplished, what they had once lived through together.

Sometimes, she was as sure as ever that he hated her, that he was ready to be rid of her, and as she prepared herself to leave his side forever at the first sign of duress, he would look at her,_ really_ look at her, and her resolve would grind itself to pieces in an instant. Every time he had stared at her since she had woken up after their son had been taken from them, his posture and his blue eyes told her that he had not forgotten about her – they told her that he still deeply cared.

His soft, timid caresses when he thought her asleep were loaded with love, compassion and a terrifying inability to make things right for her. He had always fixed all broken things for her. He had always found a way to ease her pain and please her soul. But this time, it was different. He knew that all the riches and intelligence in the world could not bring back the dead. He could have given her anything, taken her anywhere she wanted to go, but the truth was that all she wanted was her son, and the only place she wanted to be was with him.

And that alone, that single thing she wanted, he could not give to her.

Her thoughts dissipated when she felt his warm touch on her cold skin. She followed him blindly to wherever he wanted to take her. Despite everything that had occurred, she still trusted him wholeheartedly, and knew that he would not steer her wrong. Everything around her was a blur, much as how her life felt nowadays, overall. His pull was mindful yet strong, commanding yet flexible, and before she realized what was occurring, she found herself standing before the open grave of James Howard Stark.

Her eyes filled with tears again, but as opposed to the many times before now, she cried silent tears. The waterfalls coming from her eyes were evidence of torrents of inner pain and grief, but other than some random sniffs here and there, she made no other sound. It was difficult to stare at the tiny mahogany coffin over her watery eyes but she did her best to look at the final resting place of her only son.

The inventor held her right hand and guided her to grab a fistful of fresh dirt from the pile beneath them. With the same care that one would have when carrying a piece of very fragile glass, he led her hand towards the three-foot wide hole in the ground. He was standing behind her; his chest pressed against her back, his left palm secured her hip and kept her in place while his right hand held her right fist. Slowly but surely, he helped her release the brown substance from her hand. Soon enough, her hand was empty again.

He pressed a light kiss to her left cheek from his position behind her, intertwined the fingers on his right hand with hers, and then rested his forehead against the back of her head. Silence was all that she could hear for the longest time until he finally spoke to her.

"Forgive me, Pepper. I failed you, I know. But please, don't leave."

She closed her eyes shut, wondering how in the hell had he known about her intentions to end it all. She was not sure if he knew what kind of departure she wanted to make, but it appeared as if it was obvious to him that she had long ago lost the will to live. She did not blame him; she had no reason to, but she felt inadequate around him, guilty even, and the last thing she wanted to do was be around anything or anyone that reminded her of what they had lost.

"I still love you," he added after a pause. "I still want you with me."

She failed to verbally respond to his plea. She could almost hear his heart sink because of it, but she could not afford to make any promises to him; especially promises that she was not sure that she could keep. And even after her lack of response, even after her cold demeanor around him, and after everyone else had gone, he still held her close and tightly against him, and stood with her by the soon-to-be closed grave until the night fell – until she decided to leave.

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**A/N:** Wow! Talk about depressing! But, I will fix it. Can't say that too many times. I don't have anything else for now but I thought I'd give you something while I continue working on the outline for this story. Also, this gives you time to go buy tissues in bulk and to re-read all the stories as everything in this story and the next heavily reference the other 6 stories before this one. Welcome back, my Faithful Readers!


	2. Chapter 1

**Guest Review Responses**

**Muah: Yay, finally! You have no idea how much i have been pining for a chapter! Update soon please!** – YAY! You're here! I hope you like this one, too!

**Guest: Hey! I was happy when I saw you updated... Then I started reading it and now I'm sad and depressed...*tries to blink away tears* but you will fix it! (You HAVE to fix it)... Noooo Pepper, don't leave - you've already made that mistake before! What happened to Tony? Why didn't he jump of the building? Not that I want him to, but what made him stop? I thought in 'The Fourth Year' you said he took the drop? Are you gonna somehow, magically find away to get the baby alive again? Or was he never dead in the first place? Is Pepper going away? If she is - is it forever? One more question for you... WHY ARE YOU KILLING ME WITH ALL THESE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS!?** – I WILL fix it. In fact, half of it will be fixed by the end of this story. The other half will be fixed in the final story of these _Last Chronicles_. And by fixing I mean GOOD fixing, not breaking-it-more-to-fix-it, kinda fix.

**Guest: EEEK! I can't wait for the next chapie! Updaaaaaate pleeeeeeaaaaaaaase! Ah, gotta go, bye! :D** – Here it is! Grab a box of tissues, my Faithful Reader!

**Guest: Do we need to beg? Very well. I BEG U...PLZ UPDATE... PLZZZZZ**. – No, please don't beg! I wanted to update MUCH sooner. I missed the story and you guys too!

**Guest: Hope you update soon**! – I wish I could've done it sooner, I swear. But… well, here's why I didn't:

**A/N:** Remember how I had to sell my house and move? And then how I was homeless for the summer, living with relatives? Then I got a job, and I had to move again. And just as I was happy that everything was getting back to normal, my laptop died. And once I got it fixed, I was in a car accident. A lady rear-ended me and my hubby had to drive me everywhere while my car got fixed. And then I got my car fixed, I sat to write this story… and my upstairs neighbor's kids started a fire in the apartment and the sprinklers went off… and my apartment flooded.

I. Kid. You. Not.

But, here I am, back from the dead, flooded apartment still drying, and I hope that this will hold you up until my next update. I've been going back to re-read all the stories that led us here, and I've tweaked and updated TLM. I just finished re-reading TLS and will also update it soon, and I'll start with T1Y very soon. I'll probably have to re-read them all before I can update again just so that I make sure I get all the answers for you guys. All I ask is that you be patient with me… EXTREMELY patient… time wise and plot wise.

Oh, the plot! The plot of this one rivals T2Y. You remember that one? But there will be Pepperony angst only for a couple of chapters here, tops, not the entire story. Silver linings, right?

And now, on with the story!

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**Chapter 1: January**

What a shitty way this was to receive the New Year: completely alone, save for a few bottles of wine and a pack of cigarettes, sitting on the ground on the balcony of your own home – a building with your goddamned family name written all over it – with a great view of the fireworks around the city that celebrated the midnight ball drop in Times Square, with nobody willing to share the scene, the sounds of people singing _Auld Lang Syne,_ and painfully reminiscing about how perfect one's life was a year ago.

A year ago, Tony Stark had been at the top of the world. His company had been thriving. He had reunited with the woman he loved. He had recently asked her to marry him. And they had been readying to have a baby together – a baby he had not known was his in the first place, but was looking forward to meeting and raising as if it were. He had had everything and anything he had always wanted; everything he had planned for the future of his little family, as if nothing could change so drastically in just a few months. Yet, as with many recent experiences in his life, he had been completely wrong about what the future was going to bring.

He was not sure if it was the bitter cold around him, the falling snow, or the combination of city aromas in the air, but he reeked of pity and despair. He smelled like disappointment and defeat, heartbreak and a shattered soul, sadness and hopelessness, cigarettes and liquor, and he perhaps even carried the scent of death. The scent of death was the one that worried him the most, since the rest he could wash off with a load of cash, a good night's sleep or a warm shower. There was no cure for the smell of death; no absolution in any way, shape or form. The scent of death was carried deep within the body, in the innermost parts of the heart and soul, and once it made home of your innards, nothing short of a miracle would make it disappear.

Nothing short of a miracle – and he had already received too many of those in one lifetime, to expect one more.

"_Rhodey, please," Tony said, head hung, his right hand holding his weight against the wall. "I want her back," he then lifted his head to stare at Rhodey and placed his left palm onto his chest. "I need her back, Rhodey. What… what do I need?"_

_ Rhodey swallowed hard, and his once-tense shoulders suddenly sagged. He looked away for a second, and when his eyes returned to his friend, he sighed._

_ "A miracle, man. That's what you need."_

Yes. He had received too many of those.

His first miracle ever, had been surviving a plane crash that had been thought to be the cause of his father's death. The second miracle, had been surviving the one too many times his mechanical heart had given up on him. The third miracle, had been finding his father was alive; and, while he was at it, getting him back in one piece. The fourth miracle had been finding Pepper alive after everything she had gone through under Whitney's hands – even after no one thought she was still alive.

The fifth miracle had come in the form of his redhead and him avoiding certain death at different points in their lives, since he had tasked himself with helping Pepper regain the life she had lost after returning from an almost tragic fate. The sixth miracle was Pepper and he making amends after all the mistakes they had made in the past. Being able to be together after lying to each other, playing games and making stupid decisions in a never-ending spiral of misunderstandings and blinding love, was an enormous miracle in and of itself. Perhaps, even big enough to be called his seventh miracle to date.

The eighth miracle was their son: the little boy who had almost not made it due to the difficulty his development and birth had had on the ginger, but who still had made it to this world in the very end. The ninth miracle was the fact that he himself was still alive and breathing even after finding out Extremis was slowly killing him – an issue he was yet to resolve. The tenth and final miracle he could count on for now, was the fact that Pepper was yet to leave his side once and for all, even though being in the same room at the same time had not been something they had been able to do since the day their son had been lost.

Their son. Lost. Gone. Dead.

_Dead_, Tony repeated in his mind. Dead as the night he was in. Dead as the year that had ceased to exist, just seconds ago. Dead as his hope that he and Pepper would bounce back from this particular challenge; just as they had been able to bounce back from all the other ones before. Dead as his relationship with his beloved, albeit slowly crumbling wife, seemed to be.

Dead.

Gone.

Lost.

Just like their son.

Oh, the humanity! The irony! The cruel joke of it all!

But saying this was a cruel joke of life just did not cut it. It was more than that. It was a carefully calculated punch to the face, the stomach, the balls, the heart, and the soul. It was the final testament to Tony and Pepper's slowly decaying luck. The cards had already been dealt, the hand used, and the aftermath of the struggles, tries, and trail of sweat and tears had led here; to this point in time. To a reality where his first-born child was just another tombstone in a lonely, cold and bitter graveyard.

Just a memory. Nothing more.

"Memories," Tony whispered before inhaling and exhaling his cigarette for the last time, and then threw it on the floor, next to his feet.

As he eyed the leftover sample of the addiction he had taken up and had been abusing for weeks, and the more time that had passed, the more it seemed to the inventor that memories were all he had left of his thriving days. Slowly but surely, the physical proof of his successful life had been taken away from him, leaving nothing more than pictures, mementos, and vague images in his mind of the good things he had worked so hard to obtain.

His mother had died at a young age. His heart had been damaged for years, and the once cure for it was now killing him. His son had died suddenly, without warning and seemingly without reason, and now his wife was slowly detaching herself from the world and from him.

Memories: all he had left. The one thing he had tried so desperately to make Pepper forget. The one thing he himself now held onto for dear life.

Just memories.

_Fuck irony_, Tony thought with bitterness and rubbed his eyes with his right index finger and thumb. _I don't care what anyone thinks or says: Pepper and I don't deserve this._

Unfortunately for him, someone out there thought that they did, and this individual had been, for many years, taking steps against him and the redhead to ensure that they suffered to their last breath – a last breath that Tony had almost taken, weeks ago, when his son had died.

_I need some air._

The genius slowly and stumblingly stood up from the floor of the balcony, clinging onto anything he could to keep his ass from slamming onto the concrete ground. It took his brain, ears, and eyes a few moments to focus. Once the vertigo diminished, he began taking small steps towards the balcony rail.

The snow had picked up in intensity in the last five minutes or so, but he just could not give a flying fuck that he was underdressed for the inclement weather. It had been a while since he had felt anything other than emotional pain. After taking one too many beatings as Iron Man, frigid conditions did not make him bat an eye. In fact, he would have preferred taking a physical pounding at the moment; at least those bruises would eventually heal without leaving a mark.

His hands held onto the rail and he looked down. The scene was much more appealing than the one he had witnessed when on the roof of the hospital after pulling James's cold body from Pepper's disbelieving one. He still remembered what had crossed his mind seconds before he had made the decision to let his body fall to the ground. He still felt regret for what he had almost done to himself and to his redhead. He still remembered the words, uttered by his one and only, that had pushed him off the edge, both literally and metaphorically.

"_You… swore…" she licked her lips. "You __**swore**__ you… wouldn't… let anything… anything happen… to him. You __**lied**__…you…lied…"_

_He froze at her words. He knew what she was talking about. He remembered his promise to her; another promise to her that he had broken. Another empty agreement he had failed to fulfill. From all the times he had failed her, from all the ways he had disappointed her, this was the worst one for him._

_All he could think of doing now was running. _

_So he made damn sure that he did._

_He ran out of the room, down the hall, up the stairs, and to the edge of the roof. He stood by it; tempted by the sweet release of death that awaited him should he decide to take the plunge. It was so simple, so easy to take the one step, so much __**easier**__ to just let go of it all than to deal with the aftermath of this living nightmare that would not end. He could do it too, he knew. There was nothing to stop him from doing so, and by the time anyone found out what he had done, it would have been too late._

_As late as it was for his son._

_ As late as it felt for his own life._

_Too late, just as it was to keep the promise he had made to her._

_ His eyes traveled from the long fall to the contiguous land across the street; the despised piece of property that held the final resting places of many lost souls. The poorly located place of mourning. The unfriendly and unwanted next-door neighbor. The motherfucking lot that would soon hold the lifeless body of James Howard Stark._

_ Devoid of all care and numb to the world, the inventor took the drop._

_ He closed his eyes so as to not see when the concrete finally split open his skull, but the feeling of freedom never came. He waited and waited, even flinched in anticipation for a few seconds. But when all he felt was the wind hitting his face and his blood going to his head, he finally opened his eyes to realize that he had traveled no more than two feet, at most._

_ Dangling from the edge of the roof was his body, held tightly from his left ankle by the man that had been both his savior and condemner at several points in his life. The scowl that marred his face was the sure indicator of his infinite disapproval of Tony's cowardly actions, and the only warning Tony had needed before he braced for what was to come._

_ Gene tightened his grip on the inventor's ankle before he pulled him up from the edge, over his head, and smashed his back against the concrete floor. The hit made the air inside Tony's lungs come out in one swift move, and he was certain that he had also partially hit the back of his head on his way down. Not having Extremis activated in him was starting to hurt. The lack of oxygen burned him from the inside out, and had he not already been in so much pain as he already was, he would have whimpered in agony when Gene picked him up by his throat to hold him at least two feet above the ground._

_ "What the hell do you think you're doing, Stark?"_

_ "I was about… to ask you the… same thing, Mandarin," Tony replied slowly as he exhaled in sharp breaths. Gene was both keeping him up in the air and choking him lightly with his left hand, but he was not pressing hard enough to entirely constraint the intake of oxygen in the blue-eyed boy's body._

_ "What does it look like I'm doing, you ass? I'm keeping Pepper from becoming a widow. I didn't save you and her so many times, just so that you could end it all when the going got tough."_

_ "I…" Tony coughed to clear his throat. "I wouldn't call… my current predicament… just a __**tough situation**__. In case… you haven't noticed… my wife and I… just lost our son… you fucking bastard!"_

_ "And your wife was about to lose her husband, too, on the same day, because you're an irresponsible and ungrateful son of a bitch!"_

_ Without warning, Gene let go of Tony's neck. The inventor hit the ground; this time, face first. He was able to somewhat cushion the blow by protecting the front of his body with his arms and legs, but the effort would later show itself when bruises formed on his elbows and knees. He remained where he had landed, taking in the much needed air that Gene had deprived him of, and when he finally felt ready to squabble with the man before him, Tony stood up._

_ "Are you done here?" Tony asked, eyes narrowed, as he cleared his clothes and skin of the dust he had acquired in the last couple of minutes. "I have to go say goodbye to my son."_

_ "I think I should be asking you that question, seeing as you almost didn't get to say goodbye to him, but instead were just about to join him."_

_ "What are you: my conscience, now?" Tony spat and threw his hands in the air. He knew there was no one to really blame for his son's fate, but that did not make the pain go away. _

_The amount of anger, sadness, and frustration he currently felt could not be released on anyone he truly cared about without running the risk of deeply hurting them. Gene, however, him he could tell off all day long. Gene was the one person Tony had not wanted to see at the moment, but he was also the one person he could unleash his anger against without remorse._

"_Don't you have something better to do, Gene? Like, let's say, torturing those new recruits that are not yet Tong-ready material?"_

_ "You're very lousy at giving thanks, Stark."_

_ "Giving thanks? For what?"_

_ "For stopping you from making a mistake, for one. And for two, for my generosity and mercy at __**not**__ just doing Pepper a favor right now and ridding her life of your petty one."_

_ Tony rolled his eyes. "Is that all you have to say? You sound like a broken record, you know?"_

_ "You should know what that sounds like," Gene smirked. "You've told her the same story, over and over again, about how you wouldn't let anything happen to her or your son, and yet they have both been in grave danger thanks to you… not in spite of you."_

_ Tony held back a growl. "Think you can do a better job than me?"_

_ "I __**know**__ so. And if it wasn't because Pepper feels so strongly for you, I'd have taken her away with me a long time ago. I should've just found her on my own and let you think she was gone. She should've been with me."_

_ The scowl on Tony's face slowly turned into a look of shock when it finally dawned on him what the Mandarin had meant to imply – when Tony finally understood __**why**__ Gene had helped them both. All this time, the blue-eyed boy had thought that Gene's protectiveness over the redhead originated from the loyalty Pepper had once had for the Mandarin alter ego. Or perhaps due to the same sense of innate guardianship that had made Happy and Rhodey watch out for their friend. _

_Tony had been mistaken, however, and he could now see that Gene's feelings for Pepper were beyond those of a simple friendship or brotherly love. Gene had been there for Pepper when Tony had not. Gene had only responded to Tony's inquiries for help when he had learned that Pepper's safety was involved. He had all but tortured Whitney for the sake of Pepper's recovery. He had taken matters in his own hands to assure that the blonde could never harm the redhead ever again. He had been the one Pepper had turned to when Tony had made the wrong moves. Gene had been the one that had done everything in his power to see a smile form on Pepper's face, even if that meant letting her go._

_Gene had done, in his own way, the same things that Tony had attempted to do for his one and only, in an effort to right any wrongs. And the only reason that Gene Khan would devote his time and efforts to ensure the happiness of Pepper Potts was the same reason why Tony Stark went to great lengths to protect her. Tony Stark had thought himself different from Gene Khan in many regards. Yet, for the first time since ever meeting him, the inventor now found one truly genuine common denominator in their lives: they both loved Pepper Potts._

_ And at this very moment, Tony felt that perhaps Gene __**was**__ better suited for his wife. Perhaps Gene Khan, despite his arrogant nature and power-hungry lifestyle, was the actual perfect match for his redhead. Perhaps, it appeared to him, that Gene Khan was the one person who could give Pepper the one thing Tony Stark himself could never hope to reward her with: a happy, fulfilling, long, danger-free life._

"Thinking of jumping off again?"

Tony closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. The timing was impeccable for his visitor. For a moment, Tony wondered if Gene Khan just knew when to show up. Perhaps he had rigged his tower to have hidden cameras watching the couple's every move. Or perhaps he just had a way of sensing when Pepper was in distress. Whatever the reason or method was, it would never cease to amaze the inventor how in tune with their lives Gene Khan truly was, despite how far away he lived.

"You can say _yes_," Gene said and walked closer to the rail to stand to Tony's left. "This time, I won't stop you."

"I'm not jumping," Tony finally opened his eyes to stare at Gene from the corner of one of them. "That won't solve anyone's issues."

"You're a slow learner," Gene said.

"But I learn," Tony replied before he closed his eyes again when a memory of his_ better_ days, returned to him.

_He had spent the last hour pondering the same question over and over again, and there was no solution in sight to his predicament. Pepper had become an indispensable part of his life – both as a friend and as the person he loved romantically – and he could not imagine living his life without her with him in at least one of the aforementioned capacities. Becoming friends again had been easy enough so far, and he had picked up on the possibility that Pepper was starting to see him in a new light, too, but he could not afford to be naïve about it. Pepper was safer not being romantically involved with him; being his friend was already dangerous enough._

_ His logical side told him, however, that it was not up to him to make this choice for her. They were, or had been at some point, a couple. The decision to stop seeing each other should be one that involved both of their points of view. Nevertheless, given the current circumstances, it was his decision and his decision alone to make. _

_He knew he would have wanted to have some say in whether they remained together if the tables were turned, but he was a coward and preferred not to delve in the possibility that she would choose to stay by his side despite the dangers, because that would entail her trusting him to make sure nothing got in their away again. He was too scared to break that trust and let her down – again. If she did stay and something even worse happened to her because of it, he would hate himself for the rest of his empty life, which would not be long once Gene Khan found out, anyway. He preferred never to let her that far into his heart ever again than face the fact that he felt inadequate to protect her._

_ And for that too, he hated himself. Where was the young man that did not back away from a challenge? Where was the young man that had survived in spite of the odds? When had he lost his nerve?_

_ He did not have to think about it much to pinpoint the moment he had lost his nerve. He knew he had lost part of his bravado when he had found her nearly-dead body in the submarine. There he had been, suited up and ready to take on anything, and nothing he had in his large arsenal of weapons could have made it right for her; nothing ever would. He had been lucky that Gene had been around to help him or he would have died searching for her._

_ However, at the end of the day, all the pondering, all the wondering, all the musings, all the questions and possible worse-case scenarios in the world always came back down to a simple fact; an undeniable truth: he loved her. He truly and absolutely loved her – he loved her too much to let her go._

_**Maybe I don't have to let her go, **_**he thought**_**. Whitney, Stane and Zhang were the only ones that ever really tried attacking Pepper to get back at me or make me do something I didn't want to do. There are hardly any villains left thanks to Justin Hammer… and the ones that are around… Pepper could take them down on her own if she wanted to…**_

Oh, how wrong he had been! Again! Letting her go should have been his answer. Letting her go should have been his only action plan. Letting her go, just as Gene had done, should have been his only choice.

"She's not any better today," Tony said when his mind decided to give him a break at remembering all the times he had had the opportunity to prevent this painful life for her that he had forgone. "I'm sure you can break into our room if you wanted to, but I haven't dared to do that. I… I haven't seen her in a week. But I know she's in there."

"How long are you going to let her grieve on her own?" Gene asked in a tone that Tony surprisingly found to not be one of condescension, anger, or accusation, but only of true concern for Pepper's wellbeing.

"As long as she needs," Tony replied when his eyes opened again. "I… I've knocked on the door. I've sent her messages through the pod. I've written her letters and snuck them under the door. I've e-mailed her. I've called her. I've even spoken to her from outside the room. I've told her how I feel. I've told her that I love her and that I miss her and need her. I've… I've let her know that we need to mourn together. But she doesn't answer me. She hasn't said a word to me since the funeral."

The funeral, which had been on December 24th, on top of it all.

"Maybe it's time you barge in there," Gene suggested. "I can't speak from exact experience, but the loss of a loved one is something no one should have to deal with alone."

Tony shifted his head slightly to the left to face Gene, whose eyes were staring into the horizon as he thought about his own mother's death at the hands of Zhang, his face serene. When the genius' head returned to the front again, he instantly remembered all the times he or Pepper had walked away and had let the other deal with pain on their own.

She had run away when she had found out that she was adopted and she had asked him to leave her alone – and he had complied. He had walked out on her in the Makluan Temple when she had been begging him to stay and talk things out. She had walked out of his life after she had realized what he had had Gene do to her memories. He had walked away on her, albeit briefly, when he had found out that she had had Gene affect his memories as well.

And now, Pepper had walked away from him, from the entire world, the moment he had had Nurse Owen drug her so that he could tear their son out of her hands. Tony doubted there was any fixing this particular detachment in a long time, perhaps even at all; mostly because he had no idea how to start making things better for them both.

"You're probably right. A week without seeing her is enough," Tony said. "She may say she doesn't want to see me, but I want to see her. I want to be there for her."

"Then, you should."

"I will," Tony said as he saw Gene become enveloped in the power of the rings to turn into the Mandarin.

"And while you're at it," Gene began, "Make sure she knows that this didn't happen because she was not here enough when she was in school."

Tony's head recoiled.

"She-she thinks that? How do you know that? Did she tell you?"

"No," Mandarin said, three feet above the balcony ground. "She told her box."

Before Tony could truly understand what Gene had meant, the Mandarin was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Tony to ponder what he could do to help his wife, and wondering if he had just truly had the Mandarin visit him to give him helpful advice, of all things. The inventor then stared at the dying fireworks until they were completely faded. Once the New Year's celebration in the _Big Apple_ started coming to an end, Tony decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.

He turned around in place, headed back inside his home, and made sure that the balcony doors were closed and locked. His once always-pristine, high-rise penthouse had not been cleaned in weeks. The genius had made the living room his new bedroom even though there were plenty of other rooms available in the home. Pepper had refused to let him inside what had once been their room, and Tony had refused to break down the doors or remove the locks to go inside. The last thing Tony had wanted to do was to further pressure the ginger into doing or saying something they would both later regret.

He had been sleeping on the couch since they had returned home after the baby had died, and neither he nor Pepper had dared to go inside the nursery. In fact, all the Christmas decorations, tree and unwrapped gifts included, were still adorning the entire floor. He had tried to clean up the painful reminders of how their first Christmas Eve's day as a family had turned out to be, but the moment he had stared at the gifts below the tree, particularly the ones with James's name on them, he had simply broken down. He did not cry, however; he had not done so at all even if his heart was begging for release. Yet, a meek glimpse at what would have been his son's first Christmas experience was all he needed to abandon the cleaning task altogether.

Many people had come to the funeral even though it had been inadvertently scheduled on a day of celebration and family gatherings. Many more had sent their regards and condolences in the form of letters, cards, flowers and gifts. Tony had been surprised when he had found out that some of the former _hospital inmates_ that Pepper had met when she had woken up after the Whitney-induced ordeal, had sent the couple sympathy gifts as well. Tony had no idea that the impact Pepper had left on the _Tripped on the_ _IV Line Guy_ and the _Burst My Spleen Guy_ had been so powerful. But then again, it had not taken Pepper long to earn his trust and attention, so he figured that the fact that even Glenda Barnes (and many more of the girls Pepper had helped save from the Maggia, and their fiancés who had been forced into the gang), Dr. Betty Ross, Janet Van Dyne, Jean Grey, and Captain Carol Danvers had also sent condolence tokens, spoke volumes of the lives the ginger had changed and touched. Even Maya Hansen and Scott Summers had sent their regrets.

The board members, save for Mitch Richards, had all showed up at the burial as well. Bambi, Happy, Virgil, Diane, Howard, and Trish had all teamed up together and had taken over the company issues for now. They had even been in charge of making sure that the Annual Stark Solutions Christmas Party still took place. The event had not been as lively as the years before; especially when a moment of silence had been observed in the CEOs' honor, but everyone else's lives could not be placed on hold.

Loretta had called several times, and she had even flown from Pittsburgh to New York a couple of times already to talk to her daughter who had refused to acknowledge her adoptive mother, or anyone for that matter, during the funeral and burial of her only son. Loretta's efforts had been in vain, though, since Tony had not allowed the woman to even come inside the living room. The same had been the case for Rhodey and Happy, and not even the stubborn Roberta Rhodes had made it past the stairs that led to the floor they were on.

Jarvis had tried cleaning after them, cooking for them even, but Tony had not allowed the faithful butler to come near his home at all. Everyone in the family had tried showing their support in one way or another, but Tony had eventually left them all out of the penthouse by blocking access to the entire floor. It was not as if he did not need or want their help, but he truly believed that until he and Pepper could work things out, the interference of outside parties would only hinder the already painful road to recovery they both had ahead of themselves.

Gene had been the first and only person so far to have seen him since the funeral, and not even the inventor himself had seen the redhead in days. He had kept a close eye on her vital signs, however, by using the systems he had installed in the home after that night scare when he had thought his son had been kidnapped. The cameras in his bedroom, though, were all covered by whatever Pepper had used to keep him from watching her from afar. She had not been able to do much about the infrared and other sensors, but the live feed cameras she had made sure to kill off almost immediately after Tony had "moved in" to the living room.

Tony knew that Pepper was still alive and breathing, and he had caught notice of certain food items gone missing from the kitchen at certain points during the week, suggesting that Pepper had snuck out of the room to eat when he was not around or asleep. His clothes had also slowly appeared in the living room, and many of his personal belongings that he had kept on his side of the room had also found their way into the living room and/or kitchen. It had only taken her three days to fully kick him out of their bedroom, but the message had been received by the inventor on day one, the moment she had rigged the locks: _get out and_ _stay out_.

"Enough is enough," Tony walked towards the double doors that kept him from seeing his wife. "We need to talk this out. We need to be together right now."

He stood by the doors for a moment, inhaled deeply, and then knocked on the door. To his surprise, before his words even left his lips, the door opened up when his knuckles made contact with the wood. His gaze then traveled to the knob that had been locked for days. He quickly realized that the bolts were there no more. He lifted his eyes once more to stare at the empty bed before him, and he then slowly and carefully made his way inside the bedroom. He took only a couple of steps inside before he completely stopped and allowed his eyeballs to analyze the scene.

As he had suspected, he found half-eaten snacks, some still in their wrappers, throughout the room. The curtains were open, but the blinds were closed, and upon further inspection of the camera equipment, he came to the realization that Pepper had inked over the lenses with permanent marker. The bed was unmade and littered with clothes. For a second, Tony feared that he had just walked in to Pepper packing up to leave for good.

"Pepper?" Tony gulped. He took a fearful third step and then a fourth, and soon his legs took him to the wall-to-wall closet they both shared. He was partially relieved when he saw that her clothes were still there, as were the luggage bags, but the panic button had already been pressed within him. His fears led him to the bathroom when he saw that the light was on, and when he partly opened the door to said room, he gasped in surprise.

"No!"

He slammed open the door and ran inside, almost in disbelief of what he was seeing. While the chaos in the bedroom had been shocking, it had been more than expected given the circumstances. The utter disarray in the bathroom, however, was indicative of something much more menacing and serious than some dirty clothes on the bed.

"Pepper!" Tony yelled at the top of his lungs while he fell to his knees to analyze the evidence before him more closely. "Pepper, are you in here?"

The shower was clean and dry, but the outer floor was not. Even though various items covered the tiled ground – towels, shampoo bottles, makeup bags, bath sponges, feminine hygiene products and the sort, the three most prominent objects for the inventor were the red locks of hair, the scissors, and the blood. Mostly, the blood.

"No, Pepper. What have you done?"

He grabbed one of the beautiful locks of hair to quickly confirm that it had belonged to his wife. In the years following the Whitney incident, Pepper had been proud of how long her hair had gotten. It had reached her waist, even if she had had it layered, and its wavy shape that Tony loved so much had made its appearance a few times when she did not pull it up or when she did not feel like straightening out her hair in the morning.

The hair on the floor explained the scissors, but it did not explain the reason why the scissors, a few towels, and the floor were covered in fresh blood.

"PEPPER? Pepper! Where are you?"

Even though he was still shaken, Tony stood up from the bathroom floor. He frantically searched for Pepper everywhere in the penthouse; nursery included, much to his sorrow. He briefly panicked when he realized that the security system had been turned off, the cameras rigged, and that her _Stark Pod_ had been left behind, shattered into a dozen pieces scattered on the penthouse lab's floor. It was not until he remembered that he still had a way to find her that he saw the light at the end of the pitch dark tunnel.

Time was of the essence, however, and without the ability to put on his suit, his options to get to her fast and in a hurry were limited. He had no idea how long ago she had left the penthouse. Gene had not said anything about Pepper leaving the building, so her departure must have occurred either just before the Mandarin had arrived or shortly after he had left. He doubted that Gene had aided her in escaping her self-appointed prison but, for a moment, he did wonder if the Mandarin had made good on his promise to keep Pepper safe at all costs.

_No_, Tony shook his head to clear his silly thoughts. _The tracker… the tracker says she's still nearby. I just… I just need to go get her back._

He transferred the coordinates of the location of her arm tracker – the same one he had used on her during the Maggia stakeout – to his Stark Pod. He gave the device a few seconds to name said location, and when he realized where she was, he breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she had gone back to that forsaken place! She had done so the first time she had felt cornered in her life! He had actually forgotten that said location had held a deeper meaning for them in the past before the Maggia had taken it over, but it was simply because it was also another place where Pepper had almost died.

Tony knew that after the FBI had cleared the place of everyone and everything in it, the location had been deemed a condemned property. This fact, however, would not stop anyone from entering the building if they so wished to, especially when that someone wanted to be anywhere except at home. This was exactly what Pepper was looking for: a way out – a place to be that was not her own; a place where she could rest in peace.

As he ran towards the exit of the home, down the hall, and towards the private elevator that would take him to the executive garage, Tony could not help but to worry about what he would find once he arrived at the abandoned warehouse. He did not fear breaking city ordinance by trespassing into a dilapidated building. He did not fear facing the wrath of his wife when she saw him there. He did not even fear the earful he would get from their friends and family when they found out what had occurred.

The only thing that Tony Stark truly feared at this moment was arriving too late. The only thing that the billionaire could not help but to be terrified about was arriving at a scene where nothing could be done for his redhead. Losing her was the only thing that truly frightened him, and the shadow that still permeated his home from time to time – the one that had managed to infiltrate it for many years without being seen – knew that very damn well.

_Stay put, Pepper. I'm going to get you back._

xxxXXXxxx

When Pepper had mentioned to him, years ago, that the _Stark Bike_ should be able to fly (or at least his and hers should), he had considered the option as a viable possibility. He had not gotten around to actually working on the design modification until a few months ago. The fact that he had found himself with plenty of time after he had been released from the Helicarrier and had been left with no option but to quit Iron Man business, had led to him creating and modifying many inventions he would have never otherwise made a reality if time had not been on his side.

Strapping on an XS-117 in the RT-149 would soon become one of the best ideas Pepper had ever given him since, unbeknownst to her, she had given him, years ago, the means he needed to search for her now that his suit of armor was not to be touched by him.

_Almost there._

The _Stark Pod_'s beeping intensified as Tony's moving location got closer to the warehouse. Had he not seen the cloud of thick smoke that stood out even in the dark, early hours of the New Year, his speed would have not just increased to unsafe limits. Just as the day he had ignored all the warning signs of his armor when he had rushed to the hospital the night he had found out that Pepper was with child, Tony turned off the alarms that told him that flying his _Stark Bike_ at neck-breaking speed was not ideal for the preservation of his life, especially with the amount of alcohol in his system. All he wanted was to get to the warehouse already. As he swiftly and gracefully landed on the ground, he silently prayed and hoped that Pepper was not inside the inferno that had once been their _safe house_.

He took out his pod from his pocket and quickly made use of it to find the location of the tracker. The fire that was currently ravaging the building was intense; it made his search that much more difficult for him. The smoke wasted no time in affecting his nostrils and eyes, and he instantly regretted ever killing Rhona Erwin, as it had been this action that prevented him from being Iron Man when he needed it the most – just as it was the case now.

_Come on, Pepper_. _Where are you? Please be OK! Please be outside!_

He used his pod to scan the area, including the flames that now reached several feet into the air. The falling snow was keeping some of the fire at bay, but it was not strong enough to put out the blaze altogether. The few minutes he had so far spent looking for her felt like hours to him. It was not until he heard an explosion nearby that made him turn around towards his bike that he realized that Pepper was very much alive.

"What the _hell_?"

At first, he had thought that the small explosion behind him had been instigated by the fire itself. But when he saw that another fire had just erupted – a fire that was now slowly melting away his _Stark Bike_ – and he saw that Rescue was standing near it, his mind could not help but to put two and two together even though the complete picture did not make sense to him; even if he did not want to believe what he was seeing.

"Pepper… why… what are you doing?"

The first response he got from Rescue was a physical one, in the form of her lifting his scorching bike above her head, flying a few feet above the ground, and then all but throwing it into the larger fire that was the slowly collapsing building. The burning bike hitting the blaze caused yet another explosion, one that just added more fuel to the proverbial fire that was about to erupt between husband and wife.

"Rescue, what is the matter with you?" Tony demanded as he watched the armored heroine land three feet before him. "Have you lost your mind?"

"No," Rescue responded behind the helmet before she pulled back the faceplate. "What I lost was my son."

"Our son," Tony corrected her while he put away his pod. "We both lost him, Pepper. We both suffered the same loss."

"No, we didn't," Pepper retracted her suit into its backpack form as she closed the distance between them. "I lost it all. But you, Anthony Stark, didn't lose a thing."

This was the first time Tony had seen Pepper in days, and the first time he had heard her speak since she had screamed at him to not let the nurse take away baby James from her. He could immediately tell, however, that his was not the same Pepper that he had married and whom he loved with every inch of his life. This was not the same Pepper he had made love to, many times before. This was not the same redhead that had saved him a million times over in ways he could not even begin to count.

This woman before him was just a shadow of who she had once been in her life. And if he did not think of something better to do, better to say, he feared that she would forever be lost – forever beyond reach, for him.

"Anthony?" Tony repeated despite knowing better than to question the way she had just addressed him. "What do you mean we didn't, and why… your hair… you… you're bleeding, Pep!"

With the dark skies around them, it had taken the mere foot between them combined with the fire near them for Tony to finally see the consequences of Pepper's actions in the bathroom. Her once extremely cared-for hair was now uneven; the various lengths having no rhyme or reason at all. It was clear that she had tried to cut it without care, and when he saw that the hair did not have the blood he had seen on the scissors, his eyes immediately began scanning her entire form.

Finding the injury was not difficult once he focused on searching for it, and he could not help himself but to hold her right arm in his two hands. Pepper tried pulling away from his hold a few times, but even without Extremis activated in him, he was still much stronger than she was.

"What did you do to your arm, Pepper?" he asked as he took out a handkerchief, one that she had given him many Christmases ago – the only one he had left of the full set after the mutated crow attack had destroyed the rest – and he quickly used it to stop the bleeding on her arm by tying it around the wound.

"Did you cut yourself by accident?"

"Let go," Pepper said and finally pulled her arm away from him. "The tracker. I was trying to cut out the fucking tracker you put in me. But it's now embedded in my tissue because it's been there for so long. I can't get it out without cutting a hole in my damned muscle!"

"I… you…" Tony swallowed hard. "You don't have to cut it out. I can… I can turn it off, permanently."

"I don't want it off!" she spat. "I want it out of me! I want nothing to do with it, or you! And that stupid piece of shit will always lead you to me! I don't want it to! I want it gone!"

"Pepper," Tony said in the calmest tone of voice he could produce despite his racing heart. "Just… just calm down, Pep. Let's talk about this, alright? Let's go somewhere else and talk about it, please."

"NO!" Pepper yelled. "There's _nothing_ to talk about! You betrayed me, Stark! You let Jimmy die! You let MY son _die_!"

"Pepper! I… I didn't _let_ him die!" Tony shook his head. "He was already gone when we got to the hospital. He was… he was long gone by the time we got there. Remember? Even by the time Rhodey called us… even then he–"

"LIAR!" she interrupted him, days of seething anger finally coming out. "You just didn't want me to be with him. You didn't want me to spend time with him after I finished with school. You wanted him all for yourself! You wanted him to be with you only or with no one else!"

"Pepper, are you hearing yourself?" Tony's hands were up in the air in what he prayed resembled a calming gesture. "You-you… you're not making any sense. Why would I kill my son, Pep? Why would I purposefully hurt him? I loved him, Pepper. Just like I love you. Why would I do that to him?"

"Because, Anthony, that's what you do to the ones you love. The ones you care about. Anyone in your life, for that matter. You hurt them. You put them in danger. You let them _die_."

Tony opened his mouth to reply, but nothing but a small whimper came out. How could he deny her claims? How could he deny the accuracy of her statements when she had been at the nasty end of the hissy fit of his enemies?

When his attempt at saying anything at all failed again, Pepper took advantage of his lack of retort and continued telling her husband exactly what she thought about him; exactly what she had been telling herself for the past week when it became evident to her that Tony was here to stay, even if she did not want him to. Even if she could not stand his guts.

"Can't say that it's bullshit, huh? You just can't. I know you can't. You can't because you know it's true. Me, your dad, Rhodey, Arthur Parks, Obadiah and Whitney Stane, Maya Hansen… my son…" Pepper shook her head. "All of us, all of your loved ones," she air-quoted the last two words, "You've always found a way to make our lives miserable. You just live for it, don t you? You just can't be happy unless someone else suffers because of you, huh?"

"Pepper… no… I… I don't try… I… I don't want…"

"You don't try to, what? To hurt us? You just have a natural talent for it? You just _know_ what to do, what to say and when, so that we, the ones that had stuck by you your… your entire life, we… we…"

She closed her eyes when tears began to sting and her throat began to close. Tony took advantage of the opportunity to embrace her. He felt her flinch on first contact and, for a moment, he swore she was going to scream or push him away. Instead, she pushed herself closer to him as much as she could. A second after she let out a painful sounding sob that stabbed him in the heart, a flare of fire exploded near them, ending what could have been a tender moment between them – what could have been a swift solution to the misplacement of their heightened feelings.

"NO!" Pepper took a step back, and Tony had enough sense to not force her to stay in his arms. "I can't do this again! I can't just let you off the hook! It's your fault! It's your fault my son is dead!"

"OUR son, Pepper! And how is it _my_ fault? I… we, _we_ weren't even there when it happened! When whatever it was that killed him, did so!"

"That's right!" Pepper nodded in great approval. "We weren't there because Rhodey wanted us to take a break! A break from us trying so hard to fix the fucking virus _you_ injected yourself with just so that you could go on being Iron Man!"

"Pepper, if I hadn't done that, my heart would've given out."

"I know," she deadpanned. "You only did it to help yourself. Just like everything else you do. It's always for your benefit and no one else's."

"I do what's necessary to remain able to protect the ones I care about, Pepper. You should know that. I've done some crazy things, but only because I wanted no one else to have to do them. Anything I've done for the past four years, Pepper… maybe even for the past six, has been to protect my family. To protect you."

"And how successful have you been? Please, tell me about how your ideas have kept me safe! Didn't Whitney take me and you didn't even notice? Wasn't a bounty placed on our heads because of you? Didn't you want me to die giving birth to another one of your kids? Isn't that what your plan was?"

"What?" Tony took a step back and shook his head as if it would help with seeing any heads or tails of what Pepper had just said to him. "How… how can you even _think _I'd want that?"

"_Well, I'm not sure how much I can help with that," she begrudgingly admitted. "Maya's the one who would know what to do there. I can try to replicate it to create an antivirus of some sort, but not until S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us that data we requested can we even think about purging Extremis from you. We don't know what it might do to you at this point. It may undo the repair it did to your heart."_

_ "I know. And thanks to your help, I know I can wait for that, but… but that's not my point."_

_ "OK. What's your point, then?" _

"_Well," he hesitated again, stared left and right, and then stared at her once more. "If the virus is not in me anymore, and we can find who's behind these break-ins at home and stop him, I'd like to… for __**us**__ to… have more kids."_

"It… it all makes sense," Pepper said in between crazy-sounding chuckles, her hands holding the sides of her head. "You-you know I can't safely have another baby of yours… and yet… and yet you wanted me to do it anyway. That night… that night that Jimmy died… you told me you wanted us to have more kids… you… you knew Jimmy was going to die… and you were getting ready to get me pregnant again so that I would die to. You… you just wanted to get rid of us… you wanted to be freed of having to care for us!"

"Bullshit!" Tony yelled, his anger finally getting the best of him. "Stop coming up with stupid ideas, Pepper! You're just drawing at straws now, out of grief! You know fucking well this is not true. You _know_ I'd rather die before I purposely hurt you!"

"Then why don't you? Then _why_ don't you die!"

Her angry response was followed by the suit coming back to life and covering her body. Tony's jaw dropped when he saw her activate the armor's offensive systems and aimed them all at him. In the blink of an eye, he was a sitting duck, red dots all over his form, and it would only take one of his own weapons touching him for him to be killed. He knew his weapons like the back of his hand, and he knew that Pepper knew them as well as he did. What he had never known until this moment, however, was that Pepper would one day use his own inventions against him. What he had not anticipated – what he had never even considered – was Pepper finally seeing him as the one target that she needed to destroy to _save_ her own life.

He had nowhere to go; nothing to protect himself with. He had no Extremis, no suit and no weapons, no one to call on and, most importantly, he did not have the will to come up with any solution to his current predicament, as he knew that any involvement from anyone else would result in Pepper suffering the same fate he had once endured. S.H.I.E.L.D. would not stand for this. Nick Fury would not let this pass. He would use this to forever get his way out of Stark Solutions. He would use this to make his flying fortress Pepper's new permanent home.

No. He just could not do that to her. He could not let her be the villain in this. He could not let her make the same mistake he had made before, when his anger had blinded him enough to sadistically take someone's life. She was not a killer. She was not a deranged soul. She was not corrupted in the heart as he now was after years of tribulation and despair. She had a choice. A choice he knew he did not believe he had – a choice he did not want to take: letting her go.

He had been here before, many times, staring at the barrel of the gun. Even when he had thought Rhona Erwin would do to him what no else had been able to do before, he had lived through that. It had been thanks to Pepper's interference, sure, but he had found a way out. This time, however, the one person that was responsible for his current predicament was the same one that had saved him from them before. This time, the only way to save his redhead from walking down the same path of destruction he had become a frequent traveler of, was to do what Gene had done: letting her go.

It always came down to that. Letting her go, even if he loved her – even if he would surely be in pain forever because of it, it was the only way to keep her safe from herself, from him… from it all.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, partially savoring the moment he knew would come to an end quick, fast and in a hurry. He took in her presence before him, engrained in his mind not the derailed form of her she was presently in, but the happy, collected and loving version of her he had grown accustomed to. The version of her that made him weak in the knees and still made him nervous to be near. The version of his girl, his heroine, his friend, his wife, the love of his life – the version of her he had somehow managed to kill.

"Any last words, Stark?" Pepper asked in a steady voice even though she could feel her body tremble. Tears fell down her cheeks, her lips quivered, and her heart was racing. She was not sure why she was even doing this at all. She did not want to kill Tony… she loved him, with all her heart and soul. Despite it all, despite how much her life had been changed for the worse since she had met him, she still loved him. So very much.

"Yes," Tony swallowed hard and opened his eyes again. "I… I have some last words."

"Well then," she found herself saying even though she knew there was no chance in the universe that she would ever pull the trigger on any of the dozens of weapons she had aimed at his body. "What are they? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Two things," he began as his knees slowly hit the snow-covered ground and his raised arms ended on either side of his head. His eyes glued to the faceplate's brightly lit orifices that he knew held her eyes… and he wished he could see her hazel orbs one last time. Then again, they were currently filled with anger and hate towards him, and this was not how he wanted to remember them or her.

He took another deep breath and another deep swallow before he finally found his voice once more.

"The first one: I'm sorry. But I think you already know that."

"Yes," she replied, the blazing fire reflecting off her armored suit. "And it doesn't help at all. What's the second?"

"The second: I…" he inhaled through his nostrils, "I want a divorce."

The moment his statement made it to her ears, every single one of her weapons went offline. She slowly lowered her arms to her sides and stood still before him for a brief instant. She opened her mouth to say what had just crossed her mind, but the minute she remembered the fate of their son, she forced herself to eat back her words.

"Very well," she uttered. "You'll get what you want."

Without warning, the ginger took to the skies, hanging in the air for a nanosecond to take in his form, yet he did not even bother to look up at her. When the words he had just said repeated in her mind, she closed her eyes and took off.

Later on, after Happy had been sent to his location with Pepper's jetpack to get Tony Stark back home, and after Tony had arrived back at his penthouse to find that Pepper's belongings were gone, it was then that it finally dawned on him the extent of his last words to her. She was gone, from his life, for better or for worse.

* * *

**A/N:** Fix it, I will. Now leave a review to tell me how much you love to hate me. Pleaseee?


	3. Chapter 2

**Guest Review Responses**

**apps: We readers really deserve a reward to get the story updated soon this time for so much waiting so far...cant see pepperony anguish anymore...plz fix them forever. – **How is this for fast update? I really need to finish these _Last Chronicles_ before the end of the year. I'm starting Graduate School in January and if I don't finish them before them, I never will! It will be fixed… next chapter… but we need certain things to be said and discovered for now. Go grab some tissues for this one!

**Guest: good to see you your angst. it never gets old. – **I hope this applies to this chapter too!

**Elinorwrites: Oh dear god. This is literally making me cry like a wimp on the bus! Omg, Just tell me that this is gonna end up okay; like Howie getting back to live and Tony saying something as. "Don't ask me to say that I don't love you, Pep" and me crying all over my desk office and peace and rainbows and happy ending. Okay, bye. – **AAAHHH! Tell me about it! We get no love here or in _Arrow_. What are we to do?! It will get better next chapter, pinky-promise that!

**Muah: Even though I really hate you right now, thank you so much for updating! I almost thought you had given up this story! But it seems like you have been extremely unlucky recently, so I will forgive you. Hope you find your luck soon! – **Aww! I hope my luck changes, too. At least so that I can start actually enjoying my weekends with writing. I miss Pepperony, so much!

**Someone: GUGUJGBYVFRTD'OX6KSESP;'G\YFTCFDLUT;LBHNIOPMJOYUYTRTED4YTJUMU ...I can't think of anything better to say than that...other than: UPDATE AS SOON AS YOU CAN! P.S. Wow, I hope your apartment gets better...LOL that sounds weird! – **LOL! My apartment got better this Wednesday. Finally! I'm celebrating with this chapter for you, my Faithful Readers!

**apps: Plz update...waiting eagerly – **Are you stalking me? How did you know I'd update today? ;)

* * *

**Chapter 2: February**

It was amazing what one could do with the gift of time. It was even _more _amazing what one could do with the gift of unlimited funds. It was triple amazing, however, what one could do with having both at the same time. One could travel the world, do volunteer work, finish school, start up a business, pick up a hobby or, in the case of Pepper Potts-Stark, renovate an entire home, inside and out.

It had started as a simple task of moving out some of the leftover furniture she did not like in her new home. Yet, one thing had led to another. And soon, she had begun tackling a larger job than she had expected it to be. She had hired renovation contractors, consulted interior designers and had even searched hundreds of pictures and home decoration catalogs online until she had created what she currently needed: an oasis; a personal island. A _safe house_ of her own – one that was not tainted with the illegal activities of a criminal group. One that she had not burned to the ground in a fit of rage.

And so it was today, over a month after she had moved out of the Stark Solutions penthouse, that she was finally able to enjoy the fruits of her planning and labor. Today was the first day that she had been able to get up without having to worry about contractors coming in early to do their work, or worrying about materials not getting delivered to the home on time. Today was her first day of true freedom – something she had not experienced in a long time, for diversely unspeakable reasons.

Today was the first day of what she hoped her new life would be.

She sighed loudly and in contentment as she sat down on her new loveseat in the living room. Her legs were on the cushions, bent towards her chest, and she took a moment to scan her surroundings. The home looked nothing like she remembered it to be: she was certain that if Roberta Rhodes walked into her former home right now, she would not recognize it either. It was inevitable for the ginger, however, to put herself through this lengthy and tedious process of physical surroundings renovation in order to help her cope with the loss of her child.

At least that had been what her therapist had said to do. And so far, her therapist had not been wrong, much to her dismay. And damn Jarvis, too, for that matter, for forcing her to go to therapy to deal with James's death, in the first place. Why was everyone else right but her? Why did everyone know what was best for her but herself? Why did Tony Stark know her better than she knew herself?

Even if this home was supposed to be Tony's Christmas gift from her to him. Even if the redhead had bought the Rhodes' home with the intention of giving it to her husband, to tame his anger at learning that the property he had called his second home would be sold, she could not deny that this was exactly what she had needed. She could not deny that space and time were the first ingredients in the recipe of learning how to cope with severe trauma. Perhaps Tony had inadvertently tried to give her that: space, time and moral support, but she was still too angry at him to admit that he had had her best interest at heart, like he always did.

The Christmas gifts never got opened, and Tony would have not known what he missed out on if she had not been using funds from their shared checking account. She knew that the transactions were open for him to see whenever he felt like it via the online system of their bank account, and she had half expected him to demand her to stop using their money for what she was doing, but she was yet to hear a peep out of him. In fact, the only time she had heard anything out of him had been a couple of days after she had moved out of the penthouse, and it had been through an indirect appearance of his worry for her via someone else.

Her right hand instinctively went to her now short hair at the memory of it. She already missed her long locks, but there had not been much to work with after she had gone bat shit crazy and had defiled the sanctity of her impeccable mane. She could not, for the life of her, remember what had crossed her mind when she had stood in front of the bathroom mirror and had cut her hair, but it really did not matter anymore. What was done was done, and all she could do right now was silently, and begrudgingly, thank Tony Stark for watching out for her, even if they were heading for a divorce.

Her eyes stopped scanning the room and she focused on her reflection in the large, ceiling-to-floor mirror she had had installed in the living room to make the area look bigger than it really was. She bobbed her head from side to side to see her new haircut from different angles before she closed her eyes and hung her head. Even though it was similar to what her hairstyle had been in high school, she felt different somehow. Even if her hair resembled her old hairdo, even if she today wore the typical outfits she had used in high school, she knew that the person looking back at her was nothing like the person she had been six years ago. In the blink of an eye, everything in her life had changed for her.

_She curled up into a ball, just like she had done so for the past three days, ignoring the effects that a cold floor had on her injured form. There was no other mattress in the home other than the one Tony had used when he had lived here, and she refused to use that one at all costs. It still smelled like him, just like the entire room still smelled of Jimmy's baby powder from when he had been staying here. She did not need the reminder that both her husband and son were gone from her life._

_Gone. One by death, one by choice._

"_He wants a divorce," Pepper whispered in between choking sobs. "He wants a divorce. He WANTS a divorce."_

_One part of her told her that she was better off without the inventor; that a life with him would be nothing more than slow torture and agony. This same part told her that it was his fault that everything went bad in her life, and it demanded that she leave him with nothing more than the clothes he wore on his back once the divorce came to an end. One part of her wanted revenge, destruction, suffering befalling the young genius – the same part that wanted to make Tony Stark feel as empty in his life as she currently felt._

_Then there was the other part – the one that eventually pushed her to be crying nonstop, on the floor, since she had flown away from him. It was the part of her that reminded her that __**she**__ had cornered the blue-eyed boy into offering the divorce as a viable solution. It was the same part that reminded her that she had been the perpetrator of their argument right outside their burning safe house. It was the same part that told her that Tony was as confused and hurt as she was, and that he had made every effort possible to make things right for her – or as much as he could without bringing back the dead. This same part of her told her to stop acting up and stop repeating her mistakes of the past, and to go back to the penthouse to be Tony's wife. To be there for him, with him, for he needed as much support from her as she did from him._

_Both parts argued all day in her mind; the mere thought of having to choose a side made her exhausted to the point of frustration. This is where she had ended up every time after thinking things through while she tried to pick a side to listen to: alone, tired, cold, hungry, confused, in pain and curled up on the floor._

"_Why did this have to happen?" Pepper rolled on the floor to rest on her left side. Her right side was growing numb, and she was certain that if she kept at it, she would end up with bed sores without even having to be on a bed. "Why did Jimmy have to die?"_

_Whatever retort her mind was about to come up with, it was interrupted when she heard the sound of the doorbell. At first, she thought her ears were deceiving her, as no one was supposed to know where she was. She held her breath for an instant as she patiently waited for a second ding. When she finally heard it, she all but groaned aloud. She had not told anyone where she was going – not even her father – so there was only one person that could be at the door right now: Tony Stark._

"_Fucking tracker," she mumbled as she scratched the still-injured skin on her right forearm. "I told him to stop using it! I told him I wanted it out!"_

_Ready to tell off her husband to Kingdom Come, Pepper Potts-Stark stomped her way to the front door. She did not even bother to look through the peephole, and she just flat-out opened the door. Whom she saw standing behind the wooden contraption was someone who she definitely did not expect to show up at her doorstep… or at all._

"_Mrs. Stark?" the old, blonde woman at the door asked. Hearing the use of her married title made the redhead internally flinch. "Is this a good time?"_

_Pepper scrutinized the woman for a second; her dark side dissecting the scene and intentions of her visitor's presence, and she came to the worst of conclusions of why she was here. She knew she had not called the woman; she had actually not even seen her in months. The only possible reason why Matilda Jefferies was here right now was because her other half had called her in to offer help._

"_Matilda?" Pepper asked in a suspicious tone as she rubbed some of her tears away with the back of her hands. "What… what are you doing here? Are-are you alone?"_

"_Partially, yes," Matilda nodded and held closer to her chest the metal-looking briefcase she held in her arms. "Mr. Stark… he sent for me. He said you might need my services?"_

_Both of Pepper's hands went to her uneven hair. She ran her fingers through it, only confirming the already known awful state of her red tresses. After a moment of silence between the two women while Pepper realized she did need a proper haircut, she finally spoke again._

"_Yes," Pepper replied and then looked over Matilda's shoulder to see a familiar vehicle parked at the doorway. "How did you get here?"_

"_Mr. Hogan brought me," Matilda looked back to wave at Happy, who was just now getting out of one of the reinforced, state-of-the-art Stark vehicles that Tony had designed for the couple. "He won't be coming in, but he was instructed to drop me off and pick me up."_

"_I see," Pepper said, more to herself than anyone else, and then gave Happy a quick nod. The jock returned the gesture and added a small smile of his own before he took out his __**Stark Pod**__ and began getting ready to pass the time while Pepper got her haircut._

"_So," Matilda began, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Is it OK if I come in?"_

"_Yes," Pepper replied almost immediately. "Yes, please, come in."_

_The woman gave Pepper a thankful nod and then walked inside the property as soon as Pepper moved out of the way of the front door. Quicker than the ginger thought possible, Matilda began getting ready to work. She opened the briefcase and, to Pepper's shock, Matilda took out of it all the tools she could possibly need to fix Pepper's hair. In fact, one of the artifacts contained in the middle-sized briefcase was a fully expandable metal chair._

"_Courtesy of Mr. Stark," Matilda said with pride. "He's going to let me keep them, free of charge. This will boost my business!"_

_Pepper gave Matilda a lopsided smile and then sat on the newly assembled chair, trying her best to contain her tears. She wanted to be mad at Tony. She wanted to get a hold of him right now and tell him where he could put his newly-designed hair-salon-in-a-box. But she also knew that this was something she desperately needed, and it would have been a pain to go fetch Matilda on her own. The stylist had had Pepper as her client for years – even before Tony Stark had shown up in the ginger's life – and she was aware that Tony knew how much Pepper liked having Matilda as her go-to person for her hair._

_Matilda was a very reserved person, born in Italy, and brought to the States when young, many, many years ago. She had eventually married a local barber, and they both ran a successful Mom and Pop business of their own. Pepper had not dared to use an overpriced, exclusive hairstylist when she had become the recipient of the big bucks as a Stark Solutions employee. Instead, she had held on to using Matilda as her only hairstylist. Matilda had even done Pepper's hair and makeup for her wedding, even if that had entailed flying the woman to and from the Bahamas for a few hours._

"_Do you remember what you wanted your hair to look like when you cut it?" Matilda's kind voice disturbed Pepper's thoughts. "Do you have a picture of it?"_

"_No," Pepper gulped. "I don't. I… I trust you can make something out of it."_

"_Of course, Mrs. Stark," Matilda said. "I'll be done in no time."_

_Matilda worked in silence the entire time while Pepper's mind wandered. It seemed surreal to her, being in the Rhodes' former home that she and Tony now owned, sitting in a chair getting an unexpected haircut, only a couple of weeks after her son had died. It seemed surreal as well, that with every lock of hair that Matilda removed from her head, a little of her grief went with it. She knew that as soon as she was alone again, the pain would return. But for now, she allowed herself to feel as if the weight of the world was being "trimmed" from her form._

"_Thank you for coming, Matilda," Pepper finally said. Without having to say anything else, the ginger knew that the older woman knew that her thanks had meant so much more than she was willing to admit or say._

Pepper felt a cold breeze hit the back of her neck and she smiled. Her nostrils were filled with the familiar scent of her newly arrived visitor. Before he could announce his arrival, the redhead opened her eyes and spoke up.

"I thought you said you couldn't come today."

"I said I wasn't sure," Gene replied as he rounded the couch and sat to her right, not at all surprised that that the ginger had learned to recognize his presence by now. "Nightly rounds finished earlier than anticipated."

The woman frowned lightly at the realization that, whenever Gene Khan had come to visit her every weekend for the past month – just as he had done so since she had left Tony – he did so shortly after the sun came up, which meant that he had spent the night in China watching over his territory, only to then travel to the States to spend time with her.

"You should've taken the weekend off," Pepper whispered, as if she was afraid to bother anyone near her even though they were the only ones in the home. She could not help herself, though, to speak in a low voice when around Gene. It was one of the expectations he had set for her to help her mourn and deal with the pain.

"Mandarin or not, you need to sleep, eat… relax. Just like the rest of us lowly humans do."

Gene smirked, eyes facing the floor, just as hers were.

"You'd think a lowly human like you would be honored to have someone like me visit you. But instead, you want me to leave."

Pepper snickered. "I didn't say that. Although, I do remember that you _did_ say that you wouldn't use that cologne I got you for Christmas, and yet…"

Her eyes finally faced him and she winked at him when she saw him purse his lips as he realized she had caught him in a lie. Her gaze then shifted to her lap, and she sighed deeply before speaking again.

"What are we doing today? Meditating? Reading? Talking?"

"Training," he said without missing a beat. "Today we get to train."

"Really?" Pepper's head snapped to her right. "I thought you said you had nothing more to teach me about that?"

"I don't," Gene replied with a slight shrug. "So now you get to practice what you already know."

"Practice? On you, or…?"

"Both," Gene retorted. "The punching bag and me."

"Mmhhh," Pepper said.

Her mind wandered to the moment when Gene had ended up becoming her unofficial trainer, by accident, at that. Even if she had left the penthouse to be alone and away from Tony, every day reminded her that she was not alone, and that Tony never truly left her. Matilda had showed up to cut her hair, per Tony's request. Happy had brought Matilda over, per Tony's request. Jarvis had ended up visiting her every three days, thanks to Tony disclosing to the butler where the ginger was living now. She had even renovated this home thanks to Tony's funds, which so happened to be hers as well.

And then there was Gene, who had showed up to make sure that Pepper had not used another pair of scissors to hurt herself again, per Tony's pleading. Gene had helped her inject herself with a compound that Tony had created to permanently deactivate and, slowly and safely, dissolve the tracker she had embedded in her right arm – a compound which had been sent over to her via the Mandarin, in fact. Gene had also listened to her while she had ranted about everything she felt and thought, and he had also provided her alternative venues to release her agony and ache.

At first, he had only resorted to listening to her, but that had only worked so much since she was already attending therapy at the request of Edwin Jarvis. After talking no longer sufficed, Gene had then forced her to meditate for a few days out of the week, and had gone as far as using his Makluan abilities to synch with her mind to help her analyze her life in an objective manner. She had relived everything since the Makluan invasion, detail by detail, moment by moment, day by day, until talking about these events did not hurt as much or at all.

Her multiple kidnappings did not hurt anymore. Being adopted did not hurt anymore. Finding out her birth mother was dead did not hurt as much anymore. The fact that Tony had manipulated her memory did not hurt at all anymore – she actually had completely understood the position he had been in; the sacrifice he had made for her. But baby James's death, and her separation from Tony, still made her crumble where she stood. She still blamed herself for not being around much when she had attended school. She still blamed Tony for not seeing the signs that there was something wrong with their son.

Somebody had wanted their son dead, even before he had been born, and neither she nor Tony – especially Tony, in his paranoid mind – had taken enough care or time to figure out what was wrong; what was going on behind the scenes – behind their backs. Neither of them had stopped to think that the bounty was still very much active, and that baby James was the most vulnerable of all of them. Tony had Extremis – sort of, and Pepper had an army of suits at her disposition. Baby James had only had his parents, and if his parents made the wrong decision; took the wrong steps, James Howard Stark was left exposed – _alone_.

Alone: as he had been when he had died. He had been alone, dead for a while, until his cold, little body had been discovered by his _uncle_, James Rhodes.

xxxXXXxxx

_**INTERLUDE**_

_**Nearly two months ago…  
**_

They did not even bother to pay the bill – their only goal was to run out of the restaurant as fast as they could. The owner of the eatery knew who they were, anyway. There was no doubt that the patrons would send the required payment at a later time. The owner also knew that the couple was a part-time pair of superheroes, and leaving in a hurry at the drop of a hat was something that had become expected of them, even if the couple tried real hard to live a normal life.

The reason for their sudden haste was unbeknownst to everyone that watched them run towards the door and out to their vehicle – redhead included, and no one in the room would have ever imagined that the rush of the founders of Stark Solutions was due to tragic news and not due to an emergency call from the city officials, requesting their help.

"How bad is it? Is he injured?" Pepper asked when they arrived at their vehicle and they both climbed inside, but Tony did not reply. "Tony, _please_ tell me: how bad is it?"

Tony started the car and revved it up as soon as it was on, nearly crashing it against a car that was exiting a nearby parking spot. Pepper had very little time to put on her seat belt while the vehicle swiveled left and right, a victim of Tony's insane driving. Had this been any other situation, she would have yelled at the inventor to slow the fuck down.

"Hack the lights," Tony uttered in his no-nonsense voice and Pepper immediately took out her pod from her purse to do as she had been told. Her trembling hands could barely do what she could typically do with her eyes closed since the current status of her son's wellbeing was in question.

"Tony, you're scaring me. How bad is he injured? Did someone try to break in? Are Rhodey, David, and Roberta alright?"

"I _said_: hack the lights, Pepper."

"I am," she replied before her eyes looked at the road from staring at her pod and she then frowned when she realized they were not heading to the Rhodes' home. "What the…? Where are we–"

"The hospital. You hacked the wrong lights. We're heading to the hospital."

"Hospital?" Pepper asked, voice almost breaking. "Oh… oh, my God."

Her eyes returned to the pod and she worked faster than she would have thought she could, given the circumstances. Any other day, she would have questioned her husband, demand that he explained himself, that he rationalized his orders, and that he justified his curt tone of voice to her. But from all the times that Pepper Potts-Stark had done just this in the past, this time she knew it was not worth it disobeying him.

"Turn left on 47th street," Pepper said, also slowly triggering her hero mode. "I've just activated the railroad crossing bars so that we can shortcut on the intersection at Adams and head straight to it."

"OK," Tony followed her instructions while Pepper began preparing the Stark-B411 – their current vehicle – to convert to _railroad mode_. Tony had truly gone out of his way to anticipate all the obstacles they could encounter while on the road. It was at this moment that Pepper regretted making fun of him for saying that they needed a car that could drive on the train tracks.

"Status?" Tony asked, briefly stealing a side glance to his wife.

"T-minus 8 seconds from this last turn."

"Hold on," Tony warned before he rotated the steering wheel, pressed the clutch, and shifted gears in preparation for the car's transformation. Pepper held on to the ceiling handle of her side of the car, and remained silent while Tony maneuvered their vehicle to their destination. Just as she had predicted, ten minutes after leaving the restaurant, both she and Tony were exiting the self-parking car to head to the entrance of the emergency room.

The scene they walked into shocked her, as not only was Rhodey, Roberta, and David present, but so were Howard, Trish, Virgil, Jarvis, Diane and Happy. Seeing the Rhodes was understandable; Jimmy had been staying at their home for a few days now. Seeing the rest of her family, however, all red-eyed, hugging each other and sniffling, did not make sense to her at all.

"Tony?" Pepper's voice barely reached his ears and her right hand rested on his left arm. "What… what's going on? Where's Jimmy?"

Tony's only response to her was to grab the hand she had placed on him and held it with both of his. She saw him swallow hard again, just as he had done at the restaurant, and his glistening blue orbs finally allowed the tears to freely run down his face. He had not wanted to believe it, he truly had not. But when they both saw the tear-streaked face of Rhodey approach them, head hung in shame, it was only Tony's sudden arms around her that kept the redhead from hitting the floor with her knees.

"No," she said softly at first, but then closed her eyes to scream her words. "NO!"

"Pepper," Rhodey began from where he stood, facing both of his friends. "I… I'm so sorry… we… we didn't know…"

"NO!" She said again and opened her eyes to glare at her friend. "Shut up, Rhodey! Don't say it! SHUT UP!"

Her eyes then found her husband's and she wrinkled his clothes with her fists. "Tony, please tell me it isn't true. Please… please tell me he's alright."

Oh, how he wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear! How he wanted for it not to be true! He almost lied to her, almost told her that their son was not dead, but the words never made it out of his mouth. He did not need to, anyway. His eyes spoke volumes to her, and when she saw him hang his head and he let out a barely muffled sob, she closed her eyes, screamed, and let him hold her weight.

An hour ago, James Howard Stark had been found not breathing, in his crib at the Rhodes' home, due to causes that were still unknown.

_**END OF INTERLUDE**_

xxxXXXxxx

"Pepper?" Gene asked when the redhead did not bother to stop the punch that had almost hit her face just now. "Pepper, are you even paying attention?"

Her eyes took their time focusing on Gene. But once they did make sense of his presence, she was able to immediately throw a complex punch-kick combination to him that she had not been able to do before until now. He had not expected her to react so violently and so accurately after spacing out for no apparent reason, and he was not able to dodge her entire attack: one of the kicks hit him square in the chest.

"Oof!"

Gene Khan rarely lost track of a sparring partner's moves, let alone from a fiercely offensive one. Yet, Pepper's movements had been so deadly accurate and fast – not to mention unanticipated – that had he not been seeing her with his own two eyes, he would have not believed this was the same redhead that had almost gotten herself killed in a crossfire between the Maggia and the Tong by just sitting on the ground and screaming.

"Gene!"

Pepper ran towards the fallen Khan and kneeled before him on the floor. She pressed one hand on his chest, where she had hit him, and the other hand on his forehead as she whispered apologies to him.

"Gene, are you alright? Gene, I'm so sorry!"

"I'm alright, Pepper," he said between deep breaths. "Just surprised me, that's all."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he assured her as he slowly stood up, hand on top of hers on his chest. "Just… got the wind knocked out of me… I'm alright."

He was not aware that Pepper could hit _that_ hard.

Despite his complaints and his insistence that he was not harmed, Pepper helped him up from the ground. When she was positive that he had regained his footing, the redhead let him go and took a step back to provide him some space. She gave Gene and his pride a moment to balance themselves out, and while she waited for him, her eyes landed on her punching bag. They were yet to use it today even though Gene said they would, but if they ended up not using it at all, she would count herself blessed.

She had been shocked when Gene had first brought it with him, as it was the same one she and Tony kept at the penthouse's gym. At first, the redhead had been quite upset that Gene was speaking to Tony about her, especially about what she did while away from him. In the end, however, she had come to terms with the fact that, even if the divorce became final, hers and Tony's lives were too intermingled by now to ever fully become independent from each other. This fact did not prevent her, though, from having printed Tony's face on a piece of paper she had placed on the punching bag – a face that still remained on it, for two weeks now.

Gene had once asked her to picture the object of her discomfort on the bag, one at a time, and let all of her feelings come out of her and onto the training tool. She had started with Loretta, who had left her and her father when she was still a baby. She had then pictured the boy who had told her that she was not pretty enough for him to like her when she was still a child. One by one, just as Gene had instructed her, she had replaced one picture with another: Whitney, Ghost, Rhona, Jules, Whiplash, Mitch, Two-Tone, Justin Hammer, and even Nick Fury had made the cut.

One by one, she had poured out her unresolved feelings and anger on them. One by one, she had let go of the unsettled issues she had kept inside for months – some even for years. The technique had worked well so far and it had not taken her longer than just a couple of days to feel comfortable and at ease enough to get someone else's face on the bag. Tony's face, though, she had not been able to remove from the bag.

_Why can't I get over it? Over you, Tony?_

Against her will, tears began forming, and her hands clenched into fists, for a moment forgetting that Gene was standing behind her. Her eyes bore into the genius's flat, discolored and tattered ones on the paper. She had hit that bag with everything she had, several times a day for several days now, and yet the mixed feelings that befell her when she saw his image or heard his voice in her dreams were not diminishing at all.

_Why can't you let me go? Just let me go!_

She was not sure if it was because of what the two of them had lived through together, or maybe it was because she still loved him. Or perhaps it was the fact that when she saw Tony, she saw James as well, even if their son had not inherited his dark brown, almost black hair, but a combination of hers and his, with just the slightest hint of blond. Yet in the end, it did not matter why the thought of him made her lose the ground she had gained in the past few weeks in therapy, away from him. In the end, she knew that one look from him was all it took for her resolve to crumble to the ground. One look, one word, one touch from him, and she would take ten steps back in this journey to free herself from him.

How long was she supposed to suffer like this?

"I can't… I can't do this anymore!"

She whimpered loudly and her hands covered her face. Not a second later, Gene was surrounding her with his arms. The moment she felt his warm embrace, she sobbed even louder. Gene simply pressed her against his chest and let her cry, just as he did every time before when she began breaking down like this.

"I just want to be happy," she croaked. "I just… I just want to not be in pain anymore!"

This was not the first time that she had begun crying seemingly out of nowhere. This was not the first time that Gene felt useless to her, either. This was not even the first time that Gene had wanted to leave Pepper here and go kick some sense into Tony Stark, even if deep inside he knew it was both the inventor's _and_ Pepper's fault that they were in this predicament. But this _was_ the first time, however, that Gene Khan acted upon one of the many emotions he felt in moments like these; the one emotion he had kept bottled up for a long while now. The one emotion that Tony Stark had become aware lived in the Mandarin, just two months ago.

Pepper felt him pull back ever so slightly, enough to see his face, but not enough to not be surrounded by his protective arms. She sniffled and took deep breaths, trying to calm down using the same breathing techniques Gene had taught her for meditation, but she did not get to take the third breath when she felt Gene's lips crash onto hers.

For a nanosecond, the redhead was mentally transported to the time when she was young, still at the Academy and still had a crush on Gene. She was not sure if it was Makluan doing, or if it was just her subconscious playing tricks on her, but all she could focus for a moment was on Gene's kiss. It was slow and tender, yet filled with raw emotion she could feel he could barely contain. For an instant, she allowed herself to respond to it, even if just to feel loved by someone who did not feel entitled to play with her head.

When Gene felt Pepper return the kiss, he could no longer restrain himself. He held her face in between his hands, tilted her head back and deepened the kiss, leaving her with very little time to breathe in the air he was robbing her of. When his hands began to slowly slide down her neck, mapping every curve on her body as they made their way down to her hips, it was then that Pepper realized that this felt comforting and welcoming only because she had experienced it before.

But not with _Gene_.

She abruptly ended the session, as she knew it would lead to other things if she did not put a stop to it right now. The moment her mind completely understood what she had done – what she had almost let happen, she felt her face heat up in a cluster of emotions she did not dare to acknowledge just yet.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have," she heard Gene whisper before he dared to kiss her again, this time on her forehead, his hands now back around her neck and face. Their eyes were still shut; neither of them felt brave enough to look at each other after what they had just done, most especially Gene Khan. But he did feel brave enough to tell her the truth, once and for all.

"But I needed to."

"I'm sorry, too," she said with finality, letting him know with those three simple words everything she had meant to say but could not voice at the moment. She knew she did not have to, in the end; Gene could easily read her mind and soul whenever he felt like it. From all the sets of three words that Gene would have wanted to hear or read from her, however, _I'm sorry, too_ was definitely not one of them.

She felt the familiar cold breeze hit her skin again, and she did not have to open her eyes to know that he was gone. She swallowed hard, rubbed her face with her hands and cleared her throat loudly. She remained silent and standing where he had left her. Varied and conflicting thoughts and emotions fought for dominance within her with such intensity that she had to remind herself to breath in and out.

She stood there for a long time until her heart and mind agreed on one thing: the one thing she knew she needed to do next to come full circle in this rollercoaster of torment. Even if it had been wrong, what she had just done with Gene was exactly what she had needed. She had needed company, to feel loved, cherished and desired, and at liberty to let her mind, soul and body roam free. She had needed to shamelessly act upon everything she felt, needed, and wanted, all without fearing the consequences of it all. Because there would be no consequences if she did – at least not ones she would ever regret.

When she finally opened her eyes again, her gaze landed on the image of Tony's face on her punching bag. She took small but determined steps toward it. After exhaling loudly and with purpose, she pulled off the paper from the bag in one swift motion. She immediately crumpled up the paper in her hands, and then threw it with all her might into a trashcan on her way out of the gym.

She walked down the hall, into her home office, and made a beeline towards her desk. She had just, a few days ago, finished organizing her office to her liking, so she knew where everything was – where the one thing she was looking for was currently located. Her eyes stared at the large, thick, yellow envelope on her desk; an envelope which held the divorce papers that Roberta Rhodes had begrudgingly, though professionally, drafted for her.

She was yet to find the nerve to send the papers over to Tony, even if she had already signed her half of them the same day she had gotten the packet in the mail. She knew that she still had time, she was not even halfway through the deadline the attorney had let her know she had. She could have waited until the last day of the deadline, and as long as Tony was notified of the situation and was given the papers by 11:59 PM, she would have correctly completed her step of the legal separation process.

It was so easy, sending these papers to him – she did not even have to deliver them herself. She could have sent Happy, Jarvis, or even Roberta to deliver said envelope, but it was not until now, until Gene had kissed her so eagerly and passionately, that she had found the courage, drive, motivation and enlightenment she had needed to do the right thing: to do what was right for her. To do the one thing that would make her happy.

Gene's kiss had been eye-opening, as she had been reminded of what it was like to feel as if she were the center of someone's universe – the light of someone's day. This is what she had truly needed all along, and even though all the other things she had done so far had helped, it was not until she was physically reminded that she was not alone – that someone desired her to the point of needing her to sleep peacefully at night – that her brain and her soul finally came to terms with the one absolute truth she had been avoiding all along: the solution to her current problems – the beginning of true renewal.

She grabbed the envelope with her left hand while her right palm landed on her chest. She smiled sadly at the scene before her, and when her right hand found the necklace she wore that held both her engagement and wedding rings that she was yet to part ways with, she allowed her left hand to dump the envelope in the trash. She did not need a divorce to be happy. She did not need another man in her life to feel safe. She only needed one person to find joy. She only needed her one and only to heal.

Inadvertently, Gene had shown her – reminded her, that there was only one person with whom she could truly let herself be who she was without embarrassment or guilt. There was already one man in her life that made her feel unique, sought after, coveted and loved. It was the same man that always put her needs before his. The same man that had once given her what she thought she wanted, even if it meant for him to live a life of misery without her.

It was not Gene Khan, Scott Summers, or any other man she had once developed a love interest for. It was the man she had married, just a few months ago. The man she still wanted to be married to. The man that also deserved to be happy, just as she was seeking to be. The man that she sometimes thought she did not deserve. It was her friend, her love, her hero, her soul mate: Tony Stark.

That night, two days short of the two-month anniversary of James Howard Stark's death, Tony Stark received a ray of hope in the form of a text message sent to his pod. It only contained two words; a common phrase at that, but it was the identity of the sender that made it special to him. That evening, Tony had slept more peacefully than he had ever since his son had died, and it had been only because his wife had wished him a good night.

xxxXXXxxx

"Ready to read the first letter?" Pepper's therapist, Loraine Jones, asked the redhead. "It's the first time we've had a breakthrough this significant. We must take advantage of it."

"But I don't want to read the letters," Pepper whined to her former Chemistry teacher, who was now her therapist. "I just told you about them because you asked me to explain what Tony had done to help me. It wasn't an invitation for me to read them to you."

"Pepper," Loraine said in a calm yet authoritative voice. "Before you actually meet with Tony, you have to fully comprehend, from his point of view, everything he did to try to support you during your period of mourning. If you don't fully come to terms with what he did and didn't do, and with what you failed to do for him as well, your reconnection attempt will never get off the ground."

Pepper groaned, rolled her eyes, and adjusted her position on the recliner, thinking long and hard about what she was being asked to do. It was a feat in and of itself that the ginger had continued to attend therapy with the woman that had been unintentionally involved in the start of her bad luck streak while in high school, but she had long ago made her peace with it. Both she and Miss Jones had changed, and so had her daughter, Janet Lowe, for that matter, but it was in opportunities like these that Pepper questioned her decision to continue these therapy sessions with the permanently-banned-to-teach-in-the-state-of-New-York woman.

Loraine allowed Pepper another moment of deep thought, as she knew how the younger woman operated. She had learned so much about the redhead's past in the last month – and she had even apologized to her for her behavior at the Academy that had placed the ginger in harm's way. Even Janet Lowe had apologized to her as well, and even to Tony too, when the inventor had first attended his own therapy sessions with the former faculty member of the Tomorrow Academy. Even if the situation she had been involved in with Tony and Pepper during that last month of school had cost the woman her teaching credentials and had pushed her to further her education to find a career in another field, Miss Jones had also come to terms with the fact that she had let her personal issues affect her performance on the job.

"Why don't we make a deal?" Loraine offered when she realized that Pepper would not read the letters that Tony had snuck under her door without getting something in return for it.

"What kind of deal?"

"Why don't _I_ tell you something embarrassing about my life in exchange for _you _reading aloud the letters for me?"

"Really?" Pepper smiled, but the look of doubt did not leave her face. "That sounds tempting. How embarrassing are we talking about?"

"Something so embarrassing that I have never told anyone about it until now. Something about me that only you would know."

Pepper's eyebrows shot up. "Not even Janet?"

"_Especially_ not Janet."

"I see."

Pepper was more than just intrigued by the offer, so she immediately nodded her agreement to the deal. The woman then took off her glasses, left them on the table near her chair, and cleared her throat.

"My last year at the Tomorrow Academy was very difficult for me. I was going through a marriage separation that eventually led to a divorce."

Pepper frowned. "Is this why you became a marriage and grief counselor?"

"Yes."

"Oh," was all that Pepper could provide.

"Anyway," Loraine continued. "A few weeks before the divorce became final, I was having trouble dealing with the fact that I would be a single mom, and all because my husband of twenty years decided that he wanted to date younger women."

Pepper's frown deepened. "I'm so sorry, Loraine. I didn't know."

The therapist gave Pepper a small smile and shook her head. "It's been a few years. It doesn't bother me anymore."

The redhead nodded once to let the older woman know that she would remain quiet for the rest of the story/confession of hers, and Loraine continued her end of the deal.

"I felt like I needed to do something for myself. I felt like I needed to do something that would make me happy, even if for just one night, so I went to a bar. Being a teacher, I had to do everything I could to not look like myself, so I used a wig, put tons of make up on, and wore clothes I ended up burning afterwards. That night nothing really came out of it, but I liked the feeling of being someone else; someone who nobody knew I was and could use only when I wanted her to come out. Someone who would do the things I never felt brave enough to do in my own skin."

Pepper looked at her lap for a second, truly understanding what Loraine was telling her. The redhead had played parts she did not usually act out herself, especially when she had gone undercover to take down the Maggia. She had done some embarrassing things while at it – such as dressing up in provocative attire and making out with a stranger behind a vending machine to get information out of him.

"The third night I was at the bar," Loraine continued, "I met a man. He bought me a drink, we started talking, and next thing I know, I'm in bed with him in a hotel."

Pepper could not help to show on her face the shock she currently felt, but she recovered quickly enough to prevent her therapist from seeing said look on her features.

"We started frequenting each other, for a few weeks, actually, but only when I was in my other persona. I didn't have the guts to tell him I wasn't who he thought I was. And, as it turned out, neither did he."

"What do you mean?"

Loraine scoffed. "I wasn't the only one who gave a fake name and life details. He did, too. He was not the age he said he was. He was not an attorney, and he was not single at all."

"W-what?" Pepper began. "He-he… he was… _married_?"

"Yup. The day I found out about it was the day I was going to tell him the truth about me. I felt so happy when I was with him, and I thought I could make something good out of a bad situation. I thought I'd finally found my second chance at love. So I followed him around, found out where he lived, and before I could get out of the car, I realized he had a family already. Dog and all."

"Oh, my God! How… when… Wow!"

"I know," Loraine agreed. "His real name turned out to be Aldrich Killian, or something like that, and he was a researcher at Stark International."

Pepper's mouth hung. "Stark International? I… I don't recall that name…" the redhead said, only now realizing that she had never bothered to go through the database of employees of Howard Stark's company. "I don't think he works for us, though. For Stark Solutions, I mean."

"He doesn't. He left. He moved, I guess. The house I saw him in got sold. I guess he found another desperate woman to screw around with. Either way, the day I found out about him was the day I went off on you during class. I went off on you because I saw you with Tony Stark, and I somehow saw myself in you, dating a man who had lied to everyone about who he really was for years. Someone who also happened to have at some point worked and owned the company Aldrich had been employed by."

"So, you sent me to detention because of Tony being both Tony and Iron Man?"

"Essentially. Like I said: not my best moment or decision, at all."

"No kidding," Pepper said with a chuckle.

After a moment of reflective silence between the two women, Pepper bent down to her bag to bring out the letters Tony had written for her. Loraine was surprised to see the redhead so eager to keep her end of the deal, especially after she had just confirmed that she had gotten in trouble in school through no fault of her own. It spoke volumes to how much Pepper had truly forgiven her therapist for the error of her ways, and it also showed how much the ginger wanted to fix things with Tony Stark.

"Are you ready to hear _my_ sob stories?" Pepper asked as she ordered the letters by date, took a handful of tissues from the box, and then evenly split them between herself and Miss Jones.

"Are these letters sad?" Loraine asked as she grabbed the tissues from the redhead. "I thought you hadn't read them at all?"

"I haven't," Pepper replied. "But when it comes to Tony telling me how he feels about me, he has a way of making me cry."

"Oh, jeez!" Loraine said. "As if the therapy sessions with him weren't already hard enough on me!"

Pepper simply nodded and smiled.

xxxXXXxxx

_Nope, not this Valentine's either_.

Tony sadly crossed out from the calendar five more days that had already gone by of the month without him taking notice. February was almost over and, with it, came the realization that he had not been able to have a normal, romantic Valentine's Day celebration with Pepper since they had met back in high school. Every year, at least one thing had gotten in the way. Last year, it had been_ two_ things that had interfered: crows attacking their apartment home, and the shock at finding out that Pepper had been considering giving up her child for adoption to keep him from suffering for the rest of his life for being the son of Iron Man's Rescue.

And for being the son of Tony Stark, for that matter, but neither of them had known that at the time.

The closest he had gotten to celebrate a romantic evening with his wife this year, had been the text message she had sent to him that very same night. He was not sure if she had done so out of nostalgia, or a feeling of obligation, but when the text messages kept coming in the morning and at a night, his faith in humanity was beginning to be restored. He had been so certain that Pepper was having the time of her life while away from him, or so he had gathered from Roberta, Gene, and Jarvis. But now that he thought about it more, they had never said that Pepper seemed happy. All they had said was that Pepper kept herself busy doing things she had never had the chance to do before.

And as a result, so had he.

At first, every day since she had left him, he had been drowning in liquor and cigarettes. However, when Gene had pointed out to him that if he did not take care of his own body, he would truly never have the chance to protect Pepper from harm ever again, Tony had instantly stopped the self-pity party he had sponsored for himself. The message had really hit home, though, when Gene had taken the punching bag with him to give to Pepper. Since then, and for the past two weeks, Tony had begun working out and eating healthy again.

He had stopped drinking and smoking, and he had even cleaned up the entire penthouse, all by himself. All the Christmas decorations were finally put away, and all the presents had been stored in a box in James's old room. He had briefly thought of getting rid of the items altogether, but he quickly realized that that was not his call alone. It was both his and Pepper's decision to make. He had also cleaned and dusted the nursery but he was yet to have it dismantled, simply because he knew that it was something that both he and Pepper needed to do together. It was something that needed to be done at the same time, by the both of them, so that hard feelings were not harbored inside.

Or so his therapist, Loraine Jones, had so many times said to him. And perhaps, once the shock finally wore off from the irony that the woman who had at one time made his blood boil was now helping him and Pepper reconnect, he would maybe even take the time to properly thank the woman for what she had done for them throughout these past few weeks, one day at a time.

_Not __**that **__grateful with her, just yet._

He put away the calendar, stood up from the pressing bench he had been sitting on, and determined he desperately needed a hot shower. He had been working out all morning until his muscles had finally screamed at him to stop. As opposed to months ago, he had listened to his now fully-human body. It was during the workouts that he missed Extremis the most; the power and stamina it had once given him were gone. Yet, not until he figured out a way to counteract the negative side of the virus was he to even consider turning it back on again.

A few days after Pepper had left, Tony had almost activated Extremis again, feeling that he had nothing to lose now that both his son and his wife were out of the picture. However, thanks to a talk from Virgil Potts, from all people, Tony had stopped himself from essentially putting a deadline to his own existence. He was grateful to his father-in-law to have knocked some sense into him. He was also grateful for everyone that had helped them both during this troubling time, for that matter. But he also knew that he could not claim victory just yet. He still had to see Pepper in person again. He still needed to be in the same room with her without arguing or ignoring each other's presence.

He still had to speak with her directly, and not just through short, random text messages via their pods. He still had to look her in the eye, hold her in his arms, and tell her face-to-face that he wanted to work things out: that he never truly wanted a divorce, and that they would too overcome this latest horrible slap life had given them. The final test would come tomorrow, when he and Pepper met at Loraine's office, to be in the presence of the other for the first time since she had left – when they would have no choice but to be open about how they felt, and about what they were willing to do to start returning to their normal lives.

Tony stretched his muscles to help with the proper cooling of them. He then began walking to the living room on his way to the bedroom, but then decided to stop at the kitchen for a quick snack. He still had to meet with the SI board tonight, and while he was not looking forward to dealing with the passive-aggressive comments of Mitch regarding his current separation from Pepper, he also felt renewed with the sense of getting back into a familiar routine.

This had been the plan, anyway, for him to take over the operations and leadership of Stark Solutions after Pepper finished college so that she could spend more time with James. There had been a major setback to those plans; this much was true, and while nothing would ever change the fact that his son was gone and that no one would ever replace the little boy who had brought them both so much joy, Tony knew that he needed to make his peace with the situation and move on.

_It wasn't anyone's fault, really_, Tony took out a bottle of cold water from the fridge. _Even if Howie had been home with us, he would have been asleep in his room, too. We wouldn't have known he was dead, either, just as Rhodey and Roberta didn't know._

He finished drinking the entire contents of the bottle, and just as he was about to dump the empty plastic container in the trash, he heard a sound that made him stop in his tracks. It was the sound of the front door opening. It was the sound of the override master code being used – a code only he and one other person knew about; the one person that was currently now inside the home, red-eyed, disheveled, sporting a new albeit rather sexy haircut, looking angry and staring deeply at him.

"Pepper?"

"You knew," she snarled at him. "You _knew_ and you didn't tell me!"

Tony was taken aback. From all the ways they could have met again, from all the scenarios that he had listed in his mind, this was the least wanted scenario for the genius.

"Pepper, I… I don't know what you mean."

"Fuck you, Stark!" she stomped to where he stood, paralyzed by her words and sudden appearance. "You said it was nobody's fault! You said that the cause of Jimmy's death was unknown!"

"It was! It is! What… I don't understand… why are you mad at me? I thought… I thought we were going to work things through?"

"NEVER!" she angrily punched him on his chest once. "I'll NEVER, EVER forgive you for lying to me. It was you! It was you all along! YOU KILLED OUR SON!"

"What? How…" Tony shook his head. "Pepper, please breathe and explain it to me. I didn't kill him. I didn't kill our son. I thought you understood that already."

"I did," she said and wiped tears from her face. "Or at least I thought I did… until… until I found _this_."

The _this_ that the redhead was referring to was unceremoniously jabbed into his chest by her. Tony stared at her for one more second before his eyes traveled down to the folder she had shoved onto him. He grabbed the folder, took a step back, finally threw away the empty water bottle in his hands, and then placed the folder on the kitchen island – the same place where he and Pepper had shared many enjoyable, late and early morning conversations while drinking coffee.

This did not seem to be one of them.

Pepper walked over to the living room and grabbed a tissue she instantly used to clean her face. She had just parked in their executive garage, moments ago, before she had stormed inside her former home. She was not sure how she was still standing up, how she had not murdered Tony Stark herself as soon as she had walked in, but she was somehow managing to keep herself together as much as she could. Perhaps, the therapy sessions had helped her manage her anger. Perhaps, this time, she would not burn down a building to calm her madness.

Tony opened up the folder and began reading the papers that were held inside. At first, he was not certain that he understood why the death certificate and medical records of James had made the ginger so upset. He had seen these documents before, when he had signed them. Even though he had not actually read them, he knew that all he had needed to know at the time was that his son was deceased.

He eyed the documents a few times, trying his best to find the piece of information that had set off his wife. When he failed to see anything of meaning other than the time and date of death of James, he swallowed hard and nervously looked back at her.

"You don't see it, do you? Or are you trying to pretend that you didn't already know?" Pepper spat and walked back to him. "You _can't_ deny it anymore, Tony. _You_ are the reason why our son is dead!"

"I don't get it, Pepper," Tony replied and again quickly sorted through the papers, desperately trying to see what was out of place. "I don't see what you see here!"

"You mean you don't _want_ to see it _again_. You've already seen it before. You just chose to let me out of knowing the truth."

"What truth, Pepper? Just tell me what you're talking about!"

Pepper's tears returned to her, but instead of wiping them away, she let them flow down her face so that Tony knew that she was beyond keeping at bay what she felt. She then sorted through the papers herself until she found the one she had hacked from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database just hours ago while she had been trying to bring closure for herself regarding the death of her son by reviewing the forensic data S.H.I.E.L.D. had ran on their son. Digital forensics was her area of specialty, and majoring in said subject had allowed her to do what she had done: uncover the real cause of her son's death.

She singled out said paper, pointed to Tony's signature on it, and then read the final disclosure aloud.

"The cause of death of James Howard Stark, age 8 months, was due to a genetic disease inherited from his father: Anthony Edward Stark. James Howard Stark died of complications of Extremis, and while Anthony Edward Stark is the carrier of said virus and passed it on to his son, he will not be charged with involuntary manslaughter due to the nature of the virus at the time of conception."

The redhead took a deep breath to continue reading, but not before she spared the stunned inventor a glance.

"With my signature," she sniffled, "I agree that I have read and understood the information provided in this document, and that I will thus not seek legal recourse to regain my right to procreate. I, Anthony Edward Stark, solemnly agree to never conceive another child, and shall I fail to do so, I will be immediately placed under arrest and charged with the crime of child abuse, manslaughter, and failure to comply with a legal binding contract with the World Security Council, given to me on their behalf by S.H.I.E.L.D. on this, the 20th of December of the year in course. Signed: Tony Stark."

Tony's gaze went from Pepper's face to her finger on the paper, back and forth several times. He was reading the information, he was hearing it from her, and while his signature on the document denoted that he should had been aware of these facts a long time ago, he could not recall for the life of him when, how and why S.H.I.E.L.D. had even gotten involved in his son's death. He did not remember signing the document. He did not even remember reading it all or being in the presence of Nick Fury. Then again, he did not remember much of those days following his son's death. It was highly possible then, that he had agreed to this or other, worse things while his mind had been trying to block the outside world to deal with the loss of his child.

"This is what happens when you lie," Pepper slammed a yellow envelope on the kitchen island. "This is what happens when you lie and keep secrets from the ones you love, Tony. If… if you had told me about Extremis sooner… if we had monitored Jimmy because of it…"

"He'd still be alive," Tony finished for her and gulped.

"Yes," Pepper agreed. "He'd still be alive. And you and I… we-we would have still had a chance… to be together. A chance to work things out."

"But we don't," he stared directly into her eyes. "We don't anymore."

"No," she shook her head and held back a sob. "We don't."

Tony watched her as she took off a necklace from herself, and then laid it on top of the envelope she had just handed him. It only took two seconds for Tony to realize what the necklace held, and one more second for him to understand what the large envelope contained. And it took him only half of one more second to realize that Pepper had just left him again – and that his appointment for tomorrow with her in Loraine's office was never going to take place.

* * *

**A/N:** This is the last chapter that ends with Tony/Pepper angst, I promise. I said it would only be for a couple of chapters and this is the second. Chapter 3 will have some angst but it will get resolved, and from then on, our favorite couple will start seeing things as they really are.

Please don't forget to review. Every review saves a dust bunny in need! A link to Pepper's new haircut (just imagine it to be red, please) can be found on my profile :) Can't wait to hear from you!


	4. Chapter 3

**Guest Review Responses**

**apps: I am not stalking you, but this proves that how connected this reader is with your stories...you won't believe every day and every now and then I keep a regular check on your updates...seriously dying to see pepperony...plz don't take this much time. – **Boo! And here I was hoping I had a stalker :P We will have some major Pepperony after this chapter, and there is some here, too.

**Someone: NOOOOOOOO! Just as I thought they were gonna cancel the divorce...:'( WHY?! I'm literally on the edge of my seat, you can't just leave me like this! (oh and you updated fast! Yay! :D) I can't wait for the next chapter AND THE PEPPERONY! – **Here it is! This chapter is the boo-boo fixer of all time!

**Guest: The death of james... it came from 24 Hours didn't it? first chapter? ****anyway please keep it stories are ... well they make your day by trying to make you cry. – **You know, I'd actually forgotten that I'd killed another James in _24 Hours_. I think I was high when I wrote that story XD. I don't remember half of it. In fact, I'm probably high half of the time I'm writing these crazy stories. I need to lay off the allergy medicine and candy.

**Muah: Wow... The last part was really unexpected! But it makes it so much more exciting! I don't know how you're going to fix this thought... – **I don't want to spoil it much, but we will be fixing this – partially – in the last part of this story. Welcome back!

**apps: Hiii...I am expecting you to update today! – **And I wanted to! But I had to grade papers… and I have another stack here right now, staring at me. I'm giving my back to it for now XD

**Toni: That prologue...yeah, I don't know what to say to that :(**

**Very tough reading these chapters. I can't imagine how hard they must have been for you to write but I'm thankful that you are continuing to finish these chronicles. I still believe the baby's alive. And when there is hope... :) – **Welcome back, Toni! They_**are**_hard to write. I even get mad at myself. But I know it will be all good in the end, so I just hold on. I will fix it. I promise. I promise. I promise!

**Guest: ME TOO! Well...I HOPE SO! :D – **Here's the next chappie! Don't forget to tell me what you think, please!

* * *

**Chapter 3: March**

_ It broke her heart to leave him, leave her father – everyone she knew – like this. But she knew she had to do something about her suspicions, even if they were mostly unfounded at this point. She knew taking on this responsibility alone could be dangerous for her, but she also knew that there was a small chance that she was overreacting. No one ever accused her of having nothing more than rational thoughts, anyway, so if she ended up being wrong, there would not be any harm done to anyone but herself. All the harm that could have been caused by her actions was already done._

_ Or so she had thought._

_ Wishing she could have seen Tony in person one more time, the redhead marched down the hall of the Makluan Temple one last time to leave behind her Plan B, cautiously hidden behind one of the loose bricks of the old building. She knew that Tony would eventually find it, and with it he would find the truth about her plans. She was certain that Tony would immediately figure out what had happened to her and would instantly back her up. She expected that he would not leave her to fend for herself against the imposter that her adoptive mother was – he was a genius, after all. And as a genius, he would definitely decipher the code she had left behind._

_ Only much later, weeks after she had left that temple, would she realize that she had been wrong._

xxxXXXxxx

The second-in-command of S.H.I.E.L.D. practically dragged her feet to her General's quarters. The news she brought with her was weighing her down; her already petite form seemed to shrink even further. She hated being the bearer of bad news, but at this point, bad news was all that was delivered on the blasted ship: Tony's treatment had not worked the way she had expected it to be; General Fury still trusted Maya Hansen's advice on anything related to the Stark family; S.H.I.E.L.D. was out of weapons and had not been able to find anyone to replace their former manufacturers; the World Security Council was breathing down their necks about the questionable decisions that Fury was taking, and she had not had a good night's sleep since she had been assigned to infiltrate the hospital where James Howard Stark had been taken, and only to sneak in a very unfortunate and dubious form that Tony Stark had signed without knowing.

Maria Hill never thought she would ever hate her job.

But here she was, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she wanted nothing more than to come clean with Tony Stark, with Pepper Potts – with everyone. Yet, her caring heart, which she hardly ever relied upon for doing her job, prevented her from doing it, from telling everyone what she knew. Her heart told her to just let Tony and Pepper enjoy the last days of their lives.

At first, her loyalty and admiration for her General had been sufficient for carrying out the less-than-honorable deeds she had been tasked with. When her blind belief in General Fury's sanity ended, she had begun relying on her loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mission to continue carrying out whatever complex set of instructions Maya Hansen had left behind for them to complete. And when this loyalty had run out and James H. Stark had been reported dead, she had lost all hope that the redhead and the inventor would ever make it out of this bounty alive. Phase three had ended last year. Phase four was already in place. And at this rate, it was more merciful to just let the two heroes be unaware of what was to come.

Everyone, herself included, was responsible for James's death – and so would they all be for Pepper Potts's and Tony Stark's demise.

_I should've gone to beauty school._

She knocked on the door twice. When the door unlocked, just a half a second later, Maria let herself in. Fury was resting his back against the absurdly large chair, and even though his shoulders were squared and his pose was rigid, Maria could see in his eye that he was as beaten up as she was. He inhaled deeply when she took a moment too long to state her business. Before he gave her another annoyed look, the woman finally spoke up.

"There has been a leak, General. Our database has been compromised."

Fury closed his eye, wishing he could just make his problems go away. "When and who?"

"We're not sure when, yet. We just found that it happened. And I think you know who it was."

Nick sighed, eye still closed, and his fingers flew to his forehead to rub the vein that threatened to pop open at any second now.

"How did she manage that? Our system was designed by the brightest minds in software encryption."

Maria pursed her lips so that the bulk of the arrogant tone that would come out with her answer remained mostly inside.

"Sir, do I really have to answer the question of how the top graduate of Empire State University's Master's program in Cybersecurity and Digital Forensic Science, who also happens to be Tony Stark's wife, was able to hack into our secure servers without our knowledge?"

Fury exhaled again and finally opened his eye.

"No," he shook his head. "I guess not. What's the damage?"

"You will know when we know, sir."

Fury scoffed. "Or we will know when the world knows."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

xxxXXXxxx

_ Seeing her father drive away from the drop-off section of the airport made her situation that much realer. She thought she had a solid action course, a way out if she needed to flee. But the moment her father's eyes became nothing more than a moving target until only their memory remained, she almost did not walk inside the airport. This was not like the other times she had gone undercover or had pretended to do, say or be someone she was not for the sake of distraction. This time, there was no Tony, Gene, Rhodey, or Happy to back her up. This time, it was just her against the world._

_ She would have time to reflect later, she knew, but for now all she had time for was to hope that Tony had read her message already. Rhodey had not wanted to deliver the letter in the first place, but she knew that he would anyway. It was imperative that Tony saw that message before too long, and even if he saw it by the time she was already in California, she knew that the inventor would be with her in a heartbeat. All he had to do was to see __**Private Eye**__, and then find the USB drive she had hidden in his second home in order to know what to do._

_ There would be time to thoroughly discuss her real feelings with him, to tell him in person how she really felt about him, but for now all she could do was wait in line to complete the mandatory airport security inspection that appeared would take a big chunk of her available time._

xxxXXXxxx

"Ms. Jones will see you now, Mr. Stark."

It still made Tony uncomfortable to be greeted by his therapist's assistant and daughter, Janet Lowe, although not as much as it still perturbed him that he was attending counseling with a woman who had once helped make his life miserable. He still had his doubts that the girl who had once trashed Pepper's locker and had stolen a kiss from him really cared if her mother was helping him cope with the loss of his son and his impending divorce, and yet here he was.

Then again, he was here only because he had nowhere better to be, and only because Rhodey had nagged at him to at least finish the sessions for the sake of his state of mind. The almost-agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was in town for Spring Break vacation, and even though he would be returning home for good in just a couple of months, the time between today and Rhodey's permanent homecoming felt like an eternity for the inventor. With his son dead, Pepper gone, and his inability to keep a conversation with anyone, Rhodey was the only person that was keeping the genius from being declared clinically insane. And knowing how insane Tony could be, this was quite the feat.

"Good morning, Tony. Come on in."

Tony nodded to Loraine. The woman returned the gesture with a small smile. The blue-eyed boy knew what was expected of him during these sessions, so he made a beeline for the large couch and laid on it. He closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, placed his laced hands on his chest, and spoke the first line he always started his conversations with when in therapy.

"I miss her."

"She doesn't miss you."

The deadpanned response he received from Loraine made his eyes snap open, his head turn to face her, and his mouth hang. From all the responses he had expected from her and from all the questions she always asked, a hurtful statement such as the one she had just uttered was the last one he would have thought he would ever hear from her.

"What?"

"She doesn't," Loraine continued despite the hurt look on the genius. "She's done with you and she's tired of having you in her life. She's carried the burden of knowing you for nearly six years, and she's had nothing but pain to show for it. She wants the pain to stop and she will do anything she needs to make herself happy. Including, but not limited, to moving on without you in her life."

"But–"

"No, Tony," Loraine shook her head. She had promised herself that she would quicken the pace of these sessions, and by damn she would do so today! She needed to make Tony and Pepper see the time that was being wasted; the energy that was expelled over nothing. It was ironic to the therapist how alike the two of them were when in here, and even if she had not been able to convince Pepper to meet with Tony at all to vent her fears and feelings to him regarding his apparent involvement in baby James's death, this was not going to stop the therapist from making them both realize the mistake divorcing each other truly was. _The ends justifies the mean_s was a phrase that never before held so much truth for Loraine Jones in her entire life.

"There are no buts."

Tony stared at the woman for another second before he slowly pressed his back against the couch once more and closed his mouth. He fixated on the ceiling tiles and briefly remembered the time he had dared the ginger to stay home with him to relax and count the tiles on their own ceiling. It had been one of the many mornings she had woken him up, threatening to use a pitcher of cold water on him while still in bed. Back then, she had not known what they had been in the past, and all she knew was that they had already been friends. Back then, she had been happy, for the first time in months, and it was due to the fact that she was not his girl, but just his best friend and partner in the fight against crime.

That day they had danced and laughed in the kitchen, living the moment as if the two of them were the only people in the world. She had pressed herself against him, and he had smiled like a fool in love. They had then eaten the breakfast she had made for them, and their conversation at the table had revealed a truth he had lived by for years to come.

_"Hn," he mused as he evenly split the pancakes between them. "True, but all I gotta do is take you out dancing and you'll forgive me for being late."_

_ "Hey!" Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. "No fair! You know I can't refuse a good dance!"_

_ "Ha-__**HA**__!" he pointed his fork at her. "I know your weakness, Potts! And that, my beloved, is why you will never be able to stay mad at me forever. I'm your dancing partner for life."_

"Dancing partner," Tony said aloud after a moment of quietness. Loraine furrowed her brow, not quite following where the sudden response was coming from.

"What?"

"Dancing partner," Tony repeated, this time surer of himself. "I'm her dancing partner. For life."

It took Loraine half a second more before she finally placed where she had heard those exact same words before. When she remembered that Pepper had made a similar statement about Tony at some point during the better part of the therapies, Loraine smiled.

"Then be her partner," Loraine said, glad that he was starting to see what he needed to do for now. "Let her be your partner, too. Just don't force her to still be your wife."

xxxXXXxxx

_She knew that this was neither the time nor place to be emotional, but the moment she had dug her hand inside her shoulder bag to retrieve the details of her flight and she had instead grabbed – with her burnt hand, at that – the backstage pass for the Annual Summer Science, Research and Development Symposium by Reed Richards that she carried in her bag, she had immediately broken down – in the middle of the seating area of the gate. She knew how much Tony admired the man, and even if she had spent months of her allowance to buy the darned ticket, it was very probable that he would not get to use the pass at all. Especially if she did not get to talk things out with him._

_ She was aware that her head should have been in the game – in the mission she had given herself – but she could not help but regret how things had ended between Tony and her. She had been rash and stupid and had said things she had not meant. She had practically shoved Tony's feelings for her back at him, and even a kick in the nuts would have been a more honorable thing to do to him than to belittle whatever emotion he felt for her. Whether it was – or had been – a crush, deep friendship, or even the beginning of love, she knew that she had done wrong by him. He deserved to at least be heard and be apologized to, even if just for the sake of respecting the friendship they had._

_ Or once had; she was not sure._

_ She felt the tears run down her cheeks. When it became difficult to breathe, she realized that she had run to the ladies room to freshen up. Her mother was yet to show her face at the airport, so she knew she had a few minutes to wash her face and clean away the evidence that she had begun to cry. Pepper grabbed all of her belongings, stood up from her seat, and then walked in the direction of the restrooms; all the while she tried her best to dry some of her tears with the back of her hand._

xxxXXXxxx

Rhodey was not proud of what he had just done to his friend, but one thing he had learned in the Air Force Academy was that the end truthfully justified the means. And right now, the end goal was for Pepper to relax and take a break from feeling all the emotions that kept overwhelming her as a result of not sleeping for nearly two days straight. The only way he had been able to help the redhead get some much needed rest was to drug her coffee with barbiturate drugs.

The things he did for his best friends.

"I'm sorry, Pepper," Rhodey whispered to the slumbering girl that now lay on the couch in the living room of his former home, while he covered her with a blanket. "It's for your own good."

For good measure, James Rhodes leaned down and kissed the ginger's forehead, which only made him feel guiltier when she mumbled Tony's name in her sleep. He had to repeat to himself that what he was doing – the extreme measures he was taking with the couple – was only to help his two friends find their way back together again. He was not trying to inflict more pain or go against their wishes and beliefs; he was honestly trying to patch things up between them – just as everyone else that knew and cared for them, was trying every single day to do since the baby had died.

He had questioned, many times in the past, his involvement in their love affairs. He had promised himself only to intervene to some extent so that their relationship developed naturally, strongly, in order for the couple to be able to dig themselves out of trouble. And by damn he tried his best! Rhodey still vividly remembered the first time he considered meddling in their issues more than what was expected of him. To this day, he was glad that he had taken a step back and had let the matter unfold on its own.

_Pepper let go of his hands and rubbed her face with her own._

"_It's Tony… it's so __**weird**__ between us now. I… I know it's kinda my fault because I wanted to tell him even though he wouldn't let me, but then he kissed me, and we hugged, and then he was mad that I was still dating Happy. But he told me he wanted to say it first, so I was going to let him, but then the phone rang, and it was Happy, and I swear I wasn't going to answer, but he thought I was, so he–"_

_"PEPPER! You're doing it again! Slow __**down**__."_

_ "OK, sorry," she said, sheepishly. "So, uhm, Rhodey. Does Tony not want to be my friend now?"_

_ "What makes you think that?"_

_"He… I don't know. I just, I don't want to lose his friendship. It's already bad enough we're all going to go our separate ways in less than a month, but I was hoping we could all spend the summer together before I never heard from you guys until who-knows-when. Even if he and I didn't… even if he didn't feel the same way, in the end."_

_ Rhodey listened to his friend, toying with the idea of telling her that Tony did feel the same way, but that he was just born without the socially-adaptable DNA strand. However, he knew that as much as he wanted to just lock up both of the teens in a closet and throw away the key, there was only so much meddling he could do for them. If they did not figure this out on their own, their relationship would never truly take off, and then they ran the risk of splitting up before anything good actually grew between them._

_ "Besides," she added after a short pause. "I could never be like Whitney."_

_"I know it's going to sound repetitive, but you just have to talk to him. And maybe turn off your cell phone when you do."_

And he_ had_ let them figure things out in their own. All things considered, they had done a pretty good job so far. Even after the multiple kidnappings and misunderstandings, the memory issues, the lies, the secrets, the dangerous missions, and the overall difficult life they were destined to live just because of who and what they were, Tony and Pepper had beat the odds and had stayed together despite whatever life had thrown at them. Rhodey himself was not certain if he would have stayed with the one person that made his life difficult, even if that person was also the one soul he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

"_Date night, huh?" Rhodey began, gaze lost to his front. "I take it that married life suits you?"_

"_As perfectly as the Iron Man armor once did," he replied, took a sip of his drink, and then added with a smile and a wiggle of his eyebrows: "It adjusts, too."_

_Rhodey chuckled and shook his head, thinking of a million dirty thoughts that fit the description Tony had just placed in his mind. Even if he had always somehow known that his friend and the redhead would end up dating at some point in their lives, he had not foreseen the level of commitment that the two had for one another._

"_You guys happy, then?"_

"_Yes. I love her so much, Rhodey. She and my son are the best things that have ever happened to me. I'm so fucking lucky, that I sometimes think that I just have to be dreaming it all."_

_Rhodes spared his friend a glance and, for a second, he envied how at-peace and relaxed the billionaire seemed. From all the years that he had known Tony, he had seen him like this only a handful of times; mostly only after he had come up with another great invention for Stark International before the plane crash that had changed his life. However, this was the first time that not only did his appearance indicate how content he was; his words and his tone of voice denoted it as well._

_The inventor sat with his right leg bent towards his chest; his left leg stretched out on the ground. His right arm rested on his bent leg, and his right hand lazily held the beer bottle. His left arm supported some of his weight by placing his palm on the floor, and his face practically radiated happiness with his bright smile and his almost glinting eyes._

Tony had stayed with Pepper and Pepper with Tony, no matter what. For that, Rhodey could not help but to admire the courage his two friends had had even with the adversities they had faced so far. But the loss of a child was not any of the things they had encountered before, and this was the reason why Rhodey was meddling more than he really should have. This was the reason why he now found himself reading letters that he should have never found in the first place.

Even though the dates on the letters were recent, the wrinkled and damp state of the papers indicated to Rhodey that the letters had seen better and _dryer_ days. He had not meant to sneak around, and he had not meant to read them, but Pepper was passed out all over them, and when he had tried just now to make her feel more comfortable by removing the papers and books she had fallen asleep on, the familiar penmanship had caught his eye.

It was Tony Stark's writing alright, who despite his life being technologically-inclined, had very neat and legible handwriting for his age and otherwise cluttered lifestyle. Rhodey figured it was probably due to the fact that he sketched designs for a living, and in order for his creations to come to life, he needed to be very precise and exact in his drawings and annotations on the diagrams he used for his prototypes. Although, now that he thought about it further, Tony had no need for his sketches to be as perfect as they tended to be, as only he, his father, and maybe even Pepper were the only ones nearby who were able to understand what was written on them, anyway.

Rhodey tried looking away; he really tried. But his curiosity was greater than his current self-control, and without minding the fact that he was essentially violating Pepper's privacy and trust, and both of his friends' intimacy, he began reading the first letter he had in hand.

_Pepper,_

_I can hear you crying, you know? I can hear you're in pain. I'm in pain, too. I miss him, too. But I also miss you, too. I want to help you, Pepper. I want you to use me for whatever you need. I want you to get better. I want us to miss him together. We need each other, more than we ever did. Please, let me in. Please, answer your phone. I'm waiting for you. Please, let me help you._

_Love,_

_T.S._

Rhodey furrowed his brow as he slowly scanned the letter one more time before he folded it and placed it inside the album that Pepper had been staring at when he had walked inside the home. The album contained several pictures, mostly of the redhead and the inventor, and it was then that Rhodey realized how much he had missed his friends – how much he had missed out by being away from them.

Even if he had had the chance to visit them often throughout his years at the Air Force Academy, he had not seen them with the same frequency he had been used to when still in school. Before his eyes, and as steady and slowly as a dripping faucet, the clueless genius and the chatty ginger had made a life together; a life that Rhodey could only hope to one day have of his own. The life he wished his friends would someday enjoy.

Knowing that he should stop but being unable to do so, Rhodey picked up the next letter and read it to himself.

_Pepper,_

_Remember that day when I took you to the beach last December? Remember how cold it was? I was freezing, Pep, but I still went with you because I knew that would make you happy. What would make you happy now? What can I do to make it better? Please tell me how to make it better. I know I can't bring him back, but I need and WANT you back. Please, talk to me. I'm here for you. I miss you._

_Love you,_

_T.S._

Rhodey's eyes scanned the other letters, all mostly containing similar messages of encouragement and hope; and sometimes, of utter desperation on Tony's part. Sheet by sheet, Tony implored the ginger to open the door to their room, to let him inside to share the pain, and Rhodey figured by the fact that Pepper now lived by herself and that she had left the penthouse shortly after the baby had died, that it meant that Tony's efforts had been fruitless; as much as his own task of helping his friends was proving to be.

As different as Tony and Pepper were, they were also eerily similar in some ways: their stubbornness being one of them. Pepper insisted that she would never forgive Tony for lying to her – although Rhodey was not sure what this particular and recent lie had been about – and Tony was adamant that the best way to help Pepper was to let her live her life without him and move on with his life. Or as much as he could while he still clung to the memory of what they had once been.

Maybe he should have never read the letters in the first place. Maybe meddling this much was not the best option for helping them. Maybe he had just walked in to the ultimate argument that would finally break these two apart.

What if they truly could not stand being together in the same room ever again? What if the damage done was beyond repair? What lie had Tony told the ginger that had made her state that she wished she had never met the inventor in the first place? What type of fib had Tony concocted this time around that would warrant the inevitable demand and only solution of divorce?

What the _fuck_ had happened between them that had severed the connection the two had once had? Was it really just James's death? Or was there something more than neither party dared to speak about? Was there something else that neither of them wanted to tell Rhodey about?

Knowing that the answers would not come easy or at all, Rhodey sighed deeply as he finished tidying up the living room. Pepper would be conked out for hours, perhaps throughout the entire day, and he certainly did not want to be there when she woke up and she realized what he had done to her. She had been beyond reason when he had slipped the drugs in her drink, and he doubted that the long rest would give her some perspective in the matter at all. So, for the sake of self-preservation, Rhodey knew that the best and only thing he could do for now was to leave the premises before Pepper woke up.

But before he had been able to leave the home, before he had been able to leave Pepper to rest for the day, his eyes caught a glimpse of one more document – one document that he somehow instantly knew held the answers to the questions he had. It was not the fact that the document was on top of Pepper's copies of the divorce papers that made it appealing. It was not the fact that the paper was different from the letters he had just placed next to it on the side table. It was the fact that his future employer's insignia was all over it that had made Rhodey pick it up.

And when the man's eyes finished reading the entire document, when his brain made sense of the information in it, James Rhodes was as mad and as displeased with the inventor as the ginger had shown to be. But above all, he became determined to use his impending status as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to find out what really had transpired the night that James Howard Stark had died.

xxxXXXxxx

_Pepper rubbed her face with her cold hands. Even though she was inhaling so deeply that her lungs and chest burned with the exertion, the tears would not stop. This was the third time she washed her face with freezing water, but it was as if the more of the liquid she rubbed on her face, the more the tears were encouraged to come back. Why was she so emotional about this?_

_ She had a million and a half theories about it, but she pushed them all away when she remembered that she had to return to the gate. The plane would start boarding soon, and as shitty as her luck had been, she was certain she was going to return to the seating area only to find her mother was already there, pissed off beyond belief at the fact that she had not been there when she arrived, even if the older woman was the one who was yet to report to their meeting location._

_ Pepper rubbed her face one last time before she grabbed a handful of paper towels and patted her face dry. Her eyes then caught a glimpse of a woman standing behind her, and thinking that said lady was waiting on Pepper to move out of the two-person sink before her, the ginger stepped aside to allow the brunette to wash her hands. The woman never reached for the sink, however, and instead inserted a needle in Pepper's neck, too suddenly for the redhead to have any chance to react._

xxxXXXxxx

He honestly_ had _tried to make this as swift, painless and unceremonious as possible. But in the end, he had been destined to fail at this task – and failed miserably, he had. It had not been the baby blue walls, the unused plastic sippy cups or bibs, or the pulling apart of the furniture. It had not even been the scent of toddler that still lingered there, nor had it been the tiny clothes that were now inside taped boxes that would end up in a storage room until he had the heart to get rid of them, if ever.

No. It had not been any of the things he had expected it to be. It had not even been the absence of his ex-wife – or soon-to-be ex-wife, once he sent the forms over to Roberta that he had just signed, moments ago. It was not the overload of guilt at knowing that his son had essentially died by his hand. It had not been the realization that, once he packed up James' room and mailed the forms to his attorney, that he would lose everything and everyone he had always fought to protect; everything that had once been his reason for living.

Not even the fact that today would have been James' first birthday had made Tony Stark crumble to his knees.

What had gotten to him; what had been the last straw that had sent him to the floor of James's room in a fit of loud and agonizing sobs, had been the scrapbook: the pregnancy and baby's memory book he had helped Pepper create throughout many months – for more than a year, in fact!

He had not even known it was around until he had lifted some boxes and the damned thing had fallen to the floor, only to open on a page that showed a picture of him and Pepper kissing, while sitting on the floor of the balcony of their old apartment, the sunset behind them, her hand resting on his and his on her large belly; his free hand clearly held his pod at a distance to be able to take the perfect picture of what their lives had been for a while: carefree, happy, full of togetherness and love.

He remembered the day the picture had been taken. It had been before the crows had driven them out of their little home. It had been just a couple of weeks before Tony had opened his mouth to put his foot inside of it when he had practically accused Pepper of cheating on him with Happy Hogan, of all people. It had been shortly after he had proposed to her while dancing to a romantic tune during the company's annual holiday affair.

Pepper had been having trouble leaving the apartment due to the unpredictable effects of her pregnancy; she had been pouting all day long because of it. Tony had tried his best to comfort her, but in her state, nothing short of having the baby much earlier than anticipated would had made her glad. It had not been until Pepper had decided to take a nap that Tony had come up with the idea of having a _winter picnic_ on their balcony at sunset, since the redhead enjoyed watching them whenever she had the chance. When Pepper had woken up, she had done so to an already set mini-picnic, just for the two of them.

Seeing this picture and remembering how happy they had once been, had only been the first stab to his already dying heart. He had not been able to stop himself from flipping from page to page in the scrapbook, and reminisced about how good they had had it in the past. He had seen pictures of him measuring Pepper's belly on the wall as it grew throughout the months. He held back a sob when he had seen the progression of his son's development via ultrasounds. He had even chuckled lightly when he saw the silly annotations of Pepper's on the sides of some of the pictures and some of the mementos she had chosen to keep inside the book.

It all came back to him at the same time: the smells, the dreams, the memories, the emotions he had felt throughout the past year and a half, starting when he had rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night to find out that Pepper was with child. Ever since that day, a couple of days after Maya had broken up with him and had left him for good, his life had changed every single day. And while it was true that horrible things had also happened during this time, for the most part it had been great!

And then there had been that phone call to tell him that his son was dead. And he was yet to really cry for him – to really let his anger and sadness all come out. He had remained as strong as he had been able to be since, at least one of them, needed to be aware of what was happening to their child. One of the two had to perform the exhausting yet necessary tasks that came from losing a loved one and sign the forms needed for a deceased person to be released from a hospital, transferred to a funeral home, and then be buried on Christmas Eve.

He had been strong for a long time now, strong enough for Pepper when she needed him to be. But now that she was gone, that his home was empty save for him, and now that he was certain that his beloved was never coming back, he had the chance and the obligation to bring down the walls and weep – he had the right to apologize to his only son for inadvertently poisoning his tiny body with the virus that had slowly killed him.

And today, the would-be first anniversary of his son's birth, seemed to be the perfect time to do all of this. Being at the nursery that he and Pepper had built for their little one seemed to be the perfect location for the impeccable timing that his mourning demanded he take to let it free. This was how Tony Stark had found himself on the floor of his son's room, surrounded by pictures, boxes, clothes, toys and a broken heart. This was how Tony had not become aware that he was no longer alone in the home. This was how Tony had missed the moment when the figure that had been standing behind him had slowly begun approaching him, and this was how the inventor had not become aware that he had been stared at for a long time, until an arm surrounded his neck from behind in the dimness of the baby's room.

xxxXXXxxx

_She could not believe her luck, but the evidence before her was enough for her to start believing there was justice in the world. Her plan had worked, perfectly so, and even though it had been three days since she had dragged Pepper out of the airport in front of everyone's unsuspecting eyes, Whitney Stane was still in disbelief that her farfetched idea had worked. She had finally done it! She had outsmarted Tony Stark! And now that she knew she had all the time in the world to do as she pleased with the redhead, she allowed herself a few days to rest._

_ Pepper had woken up a few times since their arrival from the airport, but other than screaming and banging at the metal walls that encased her, the redhead had done nothing more than to sob and beg in the darkness of the coffin-like contraption she had her in. She had also fallen asleep crying sometimes, and she had pleaded for food and a drink on a few other occasions, but Whitney was yet to show her any mercy; it was doubtful that it would change at all. In the blonde's eyes, the redhead deserved this and more. In Madame Masque's eyes, Pepper Potts deserved to be punished and die._

_ It was almost the end of the third day of this successful abduction, and it was now time to have the fun the mask had told her she could have with the ginger. It would be a long time before anyone realized that Pepper was gone, which meant there would be days upon days of carrying out the long list of sentences and torture that Whitney Stane had carefully planned for Tony Stark's loved one. By the end of this, and before her last breath, Pepper Potts would know what it was like to lose everything and everyone she always cared about._

_ Pepper Potts would learn, before she died, what a mistake she had made when she had allowed herself to fall in love with Tony Stark._

xxxXXXxxx

Even though he slightly jumped out of his skin when he felt the grip tighten around his chest and shoulders, he did not care enough to turn around to see who it was, to open his eyes, or to even verbally challenge the trespasser in his home. He did not even care enough to try to fight back. If there was any God at all, Tony mused, and if this God cared about him one bit, it had been He who had sent this intruder to his home to end his life. Maybe it was just Gene, maybe it was Rhodey – even though he was back at the Air Force for now – or maybe it was an enemy of his – whoever was left of them – and perhaps he had come here to end his suffering by slitting his throat

Oh, how he hoped this was about to be the case!

But when he felt the newcomer kneel behind him, and the other arm encased him in a tight yet affectionate hug, the inventor partially froze in confusion. When this same person rubbed the genius' left cheek with their nose, and the smell of their scent – of the familiar perfume – made it to his nostrils, Tony Stark sharply gasped. His eyes finally opened, and he dared to look down at his chest, where the small hands pressed against his heart. When he saw the easily recognizable rings on the dainty left hand, Tony finally knew who it was that had snuck behind him.

And he could not believe his luck.

His breathing and heartbeat quickened, but he refused to get his hopes up. He placed his hand on the guest's left one to rub his fingers against the rings, just to make sure they were actually there and that he was not seeing things again. His fingertips then rubbed the smooth skin of her hands and trailed up her forearm all the way to her left shoulder. His hand then slid up her neck, to her face, and he held her there so that, when he turned his head to stare into her hazel eyes, she did not have a chance to run away from him – or at least not yet.

Her eyes were as irritated as his and they too denoted how shattered she felt inside. He had seen that look on her features before, ever since James had died, but this was the first time that, mixed in with the sorrow of losing their child, was also the look of needing the comfort and love that only they could find in each other. The comfort he had wanted to give her all this time. The comfort he could see and sense she was willing to not only accept from him, but to give in return as well.

This HAD to be a dream!

His eyes stared at the rings once more as he recalled where he had last seen them, trying to make sense of this surreal sensation he currently felt. After Pepper had dropped off the divorce papers, and the rings on the pinwheel necklace he had given her for her birthday a long time ago, Tony had been wearing the necklace with the rings until earlier today. When he had finally had the guts to sign all of the separation forms, he had taken off the necklace and the rings and had placed them on the kitchen island, next to the stack of divorce papers, before he had found himself walking inside the nursery room to say his final goodbye to his son. He knew for a fact that Pepper no longer had the rings with her, and the only way she could be wearing them right now was if she had come inside their home, picked them up from where he had left them, and deliberately placed them upon her hand.

It was clear to the ginger that Tony was having a difficult time believing what he was seeing – that she was truly there with him, so she gave him a tiny smile as she removed one of her arms from him to show him the necklace she had put back on herself when she had found it on the counter. She had also grabbed the divorce papers and had thrown them in the fire that had already been lit inside the living room fireplace while she had been walking around the penthouse, searching for her husband's whereabouts. It had not been until she had heard the heart-wrenching sob she had never, ever heard him make that she realized where Tony currently was.

She had hesitated for a second after she had heard him crying, and she had briefly doubted that what she was about to do was best for _him_. At this point, and after much thought, she did not care if being with him was the best for her. What she had come to want even more, ever since she had received that anonymous message, two days ago, was to do whatever would make _him_ happy; whatever would make things better for him and _not _for her. It had not been until she had received that unsigned note inside an unmarked envelope that she had finally seen the true error of her ways.

_She walked over to her mailbox, the one she had just gotten replaced and reinforced for security purposes, and she lazily unlocked it to check her mail. She did not receive much correspondence at this location, and since most of her financial responsibilities' statuses were delivered to her via electronic means, she rarely had much need to check the box. Today was different, however, and between a couple of envelopes, the usual advertisements and the local stores' printed marketing efforts, she found a white envelope that immediately caught her eye in the midst of the brightly colored papers._

_ She frowned for a moment when she realized that even though the letter was sealed; it was not postmarked, meaning that someone other than her usual mailman had been able to access her secured box. She would later have to review the footage of the security cameras around her home to try to catch a glimpse of the would-be violator, but she could already narrow down the list of possible culprits who had dared to break into her mailbox to leave this mysterious letter for her. She stole a glance around herself to check if she was being watched, but when she saw nothing out of the ordinary near her land, she shook her head, locked her box, and returned home._

_ As soon as she walked inside the living room, she filtered through the junk and grabbed the three envelopes she had received. She dumped the ads inside a recycle bin she kept near the front door for this exact purpose and she then sat on the couch to examine her mail. The first envelope contained the official welcome letter to the hall of fame of Empire State University. She just rolled her eyes at it before she tossed it to the side. The second envelope contained a written notification of the now-approved vehicle registration and state safety inspection of her non-Stark issued automobile. The latter she had obtained to make sure she was able to drive a normal vehicle when she did not feel like calling attention to herself, so she placed that particular letter and envelope on the side table of the couch she currently sat on._

_ The third letter finally made it to her attention, and she stared at it for a few seconds, internally debating if she should even open the damned thing at all. Her first thought was that perhaps Tony had sneaked in a message for her, just as he had tried many times before when she had locked herself in their room after the baby had died. She almost tore apart the envelope without reading its contents, but she stopped herself from doing so. She had not wanted to tear the paper because it could be Tony's, but because she could not stand to be reminded how much she had failed him by casting him aside without considering his feelings in the entire matter. She already had loads of pictures, gifts, letters and memories to remind her of how horrible of a partner she had been to him; she did not need one more aide memoire of her weakness._

_ It had taken her over two months by herself, extensive training, meditation sessions, talks with Rhodey, Jarvis, Howard, Trish, Virgil, Happy and Gene, and a lot of crying and self-pity parties she only attended herself, but she had finally realized that she had been selfish and arrogant__,__ and had treated Tony in ways no one – especially not her blue-eyed boy – should have been treated after everything he had done for her._

_ She no longer felt worthy of his words of encouragement and of his tokens of love. She no longer felt as if being with him was fair to them, as she had proven to be the worst thing that had ever happened to Tony Stark. All this time she had focused on how much her life had been affected by knowing him, being with him and loving him, but it had not been until recently that she had stopped to think how much her being around him had affected him as well._

_ He had moved mountains to make her happy, to be with her at all costs. He had lived with her and had supported her for months despite the knowledge that she was better off without knowing how he felt about her, and he had done whatever had been necessary to assure her comfort above his. He had taken her in and had cared for her when she had found out she was pregnant, even before he had known the baby was actually his. He had asked her to be his wife even after she had stomped over his heart a few times. There had not been one day, one action, one fucking __**thought **__that had come from Tony that was not aimed at making things better for her – even if at first the good intent had not been clear to her._

_ And what had she done in return? She did not dare to go there again, but what she did remind herself of was that Tony did not deserve to suffer the way he had, especially not by her hand. She was convinced that she did not deserve to be loved by him – by someone who had devoted his life to her to the point of ignoring all self-preservation instincts and personal dignity. It was not her who was better off without him. It was Tony Stark who was better off without her._

_ She stared at the letter again and tapped it on the back of her left hand. Once her guilt-ridden side had stated its peace, her hero side kicked in. What if it was a trap? What if the envelope contained a virus or a bioweapon? What if someone who was aware of the bounty had found her location and was trying to collect the fee? They had already taken out her son, this much she was aware of, and as far as she knew, Tony was still alive. It made sense to her that they would try to get her first now that she was no longer under the inventor's protection, as it was no secret that even with all her knowledge and war tactics abilities, Tony was still ahead of her when it came to fighting crime._

_ She pursed her lips and then lifted the envelope above her head so that the light of the room would filter through it to look inside. She stared at it from different angles, tapped it against her legs, and then finally took it with her to her home lab. She was yet to decide what to do with the old armory building outside the home, and now that she was aware of what she had done when she had bought this property from Roberta, she did not have the heart to further alter the place that Tony had once called home. The abandoned warehouse and the burned armory inside of it was his, and it would be up to him to decide what to do with it._

_ This had not stopped her, however, from turning the basement into a smaller-scale replica of the Makluan Temple's lab. She had used the diagrams of the temple to recreate some of the most useful tools Tony held there, but since the equipment was mostly unique and one-of-a-kind, so far she had only been able to have the x-ray machine and some of the supercomputers delivered to the home. The rest would have to wait until Tony himself actually completed the work orders she had placed in, and she could only hope that he would build the equipment for her, no questions asked. If he chose not to fulfill the work orders, then she would be shit out of luck, and she did not plan to complain about that; even if she had come to rely on his tech to get her out of trouble or to battle the enemies they had made over time._

_ She walked down the basement stairs and made a beeline for the x-ray machine. She placed the envelope inside and ran all kinds of tests on the enigmatic piece of mail. She gave it almost half an hour to show results, and when she read the final result that the only thing the white envelope contained was a single piece of paper, she immediately grabbed it from the machine and opened it up. She then ran to __**her**__ side of the basement lab, envelope and letter in hand, and put her education to use._

_ Just as the envelope, the paper was not signed, and the only noticeable identifier she found on the paper was a serial number she did not immediately recognize, printed on the top middle of the letter. There was also one single line of text printed in the middle of it, so she could not even run a handwriting recognition algorithm on the words. There were no fingerprints either, the ink and paper were of normal use, and there was no DNA trace anywhere on it, so whoever had done this was a pro. Other than actually reviewing the security camera feeds for the past three days, she would have to just deal with the fact that all the information she was going to get for now out of the letter was to read its contents once and for all._

_ She eyed the serial number one more time, and something in the back of her mind told her that she had seen it before. She shook her head a few times when something tried to come to the surface, but when she was not able to instantly recall where she had previously seen this number, she decided to let it go for now and just read the damned message. Her gaze trailed down to the middle of the sheet, read the line of text, and she frowned. She read it three more times and alternated between the number and the words, and when it finally dawned on her where she had read the serial code before, she held back a gasp._

_ "No," she shook her head. "It can't be!"_

_ She ran up the stairs and out of the basement, and did not stop until she reached her home office room. She headed straight to the filing cabinet, unlocked it, pulled out the third drawer, found the file she was looking for and all but slammed it against her desk. She sorted through the papers inside of it until she found what she was desperate to find, and when she finally did so, she held side by side both the unsigned paper she had just received and the S.H.I.E.L.D. record of Tony's signed affidavit acknowledging his involvement in James's death._

_ The serial numbers matched._

_ And when she realized that the numbers matched, the printed words on the paper made sense to her. And she felt like throwing up._

_ She closed her eyes, hyperventilated a few times, and then ran to her computer. She sat in the chair, pulled up the program she had been using to monitor S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database system and confirmed that other than herself, no one else had hacked into their servers. She then double-checked that her filing cabinet had been secured and intact when visitors had been in her home, and other than the Mandarin trying to do so, no one else would have been able to find the information regarding the serial number of their case with S.H.I.E.L.D., hidden in her cabinet. Besides, she knew that Gene was still too embarrassed and hurt to physically visit her for a while._

_ She knew that she had given Tony a copy of the records of James's death, but she had removed the serial number from it so that he was not tempted to look up the information on his own. She knew that this would have not stopped him from hacking the S.H.I.E.L.D. database anyway, just as she had done herself, so she had designed the system that had been monitoring S.H.I.E.L.D. activity for weeks now. S.H.I.E.L.D. was yet to find they were being constantly monitored, and she was aware that they were now cognizant that a leak had taken place. But unless they just tried to pin it on her out of pure suspicion, she had made sure that they never found traces of her ever being there._

_ She had learned from the best, after all, and her experience and knowledge had allowed her to hack even her own servers at Stark Solutions tower and the Makluan Temple without setting off any alarms and without having to leave her new home. The records showed that Tony had not used their recon capable systems in forever, had not reactivated Extremis in him, and neither had he tried to make contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. or the World Security Council. Tony had really cut S.H.I.E.L.D. some major slack for a while now, but she refused to do the same for the organization that had only gotten in Tony's way. She was yet to really scrutinize the records of everything that S.H.I.E.L.D. knew about her and Tony, but right now she did not feel like bringing down the Helicarrier to teach Nick Fury a hard lesson of life: you did not hurt Tony Stark without feeling the wrath of Pepper Potts._

_ Back to the matter at hand._

_ Pepper triple-checked all her records and slowly ordered her thoughts and memories. There was absolutely no way that anyone other than her knew about this serial number, unless of course that person was already inside the Helicarrier – unless the sender of this note currently made of the flying fortress their home. Rhodey was out of the question – he was not to join S.H.I.E.L.D. until May, and even if he had access to the database, the copy of the S.H.I.E.L.D. record he had confronted her about when he had visited her during Spring Break was a copy that lacked the serial number. She had kept the master copy for herself, as she had known that this information could land either Rhodey, Tony or anyone else that cared about her, in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jail, and this was the last thing she wanted for any of them._

_ She took a deep breath, pressed her back against the chair, and stared at the paper once more. Whoever had sent her this message knew what they were speaking of, and this fact made the words on the paper that much more powerful to her. The message should have not been news to her – she should have known this to be the case, but she had not wanted to believe that, on this issue, she had been in the wrong, too. She knew it was a possibility, she knew it was absolutely possible that she had believed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s words over Tony's, but now she __**knew**__ why she had not wanted to believe his innocence to be true: she had not wanted to feel the temptation to go back to him, to ask him to forgive her, and beg him to let her be with him again._

_ The belief that he had lied to her, that he had not been an innocent party in this S.H.I.E.L.D. maze, was the only thing keeping her from interfering in his life once more. She wanted to be stronger, she wanted to let him be happy for once, but the moment these words she had just read repeated in her head, she closed her eyes and cried. She cried because she had known, all this time, that the phrase written on the paper: "He didn't know," was everything but a lie._

xxxXXXxxx

There was much to say, but neither dared to speak. For now all they could do was to hold one another, and cry together for their loss. She held her husband with everything she had, and she hoped that her presence and her soft caresses made it easier on him. He held her waist and cried like a child, on her chest and lap. With every sound of pain that came from him, she felt guiltier than before. Without asking, without even saying a word or accusing her for her flaws, Tony had welcomed her back into his life, and even if she knew that she was not deserving of it, she stayed with him all night until he found peace and sleep. She would always stay with him now, even if she had to live with the knowledge that he was too good for her. And he would stay with her, as long as he lived, even if he would always remember that their son had died because of him.

For the first time in months, Tony and Pepper fell asleep in each other's arms – after silently accepting and forgiving their common guilt – and on the same bed. _Their_ bed.

* * *

**A/N:** Rejoice, my Faithful Readers! This is the last chapter of the entire series where Tony and Pepper are mad at each other! Congratulations for making it this far! And now, a message from my Beta Reader and hubby, Teen Tyrant:

_When you read Miss Starfire's fics without reviewing, you bring down her confidence as a writer. When you bring down her confidence as a writer, you deprive yourself of story updates. When you deprive yourself of story updates, you become bored. When you become bored, you take up juggling. When you take up juggling, you attempt juggling on top of a fence. When you attempt juggling on top of a fence, you fall into a junkyard filled with guard dogs. And when you fall into a junkyard filled with guard dogs, you end up in a hospital for six weeks. Don't end up in a hospital for six weeks! Leave a review!_

He really likes those commercials. ^_^


	5. Chapter 4

**Guest Review Responses**

**Guest: Nice chapter.i hate sports anyway. – **LOL! No juggling for you, then!

**Muah: Here is my review, which means I will not be ending up in hospital for six weeks! Another amazing chapter! So glad Pepper got to her senses. – **Aren't we all? Pepper's gonna need a lot of senses for what's coming to her or for her… hehehehe.

**Guest: Ahh...I actually feel satisfied now... :) – **YAY! Here's more satisfaction, I hope.

**apps: I don't know why, but somewhere I didn't understood the chapter...anyways what all matters in the end is pepperony is back... yipeeeeeee...thanks a lot...eagerly waiting for major pepperony to come...! – **Sorry about that. It was a little all over the place. We're going to start seeing more of what happened behind the scenes throughout the entire series – stuff that we haven't seen before, and I decided to start with Pepper's issue with Whitney. We'll see more of that here and then I'll move on to other flashbacks of what has been happening in the background that has been affecting our favorite ship.

**Toni: The desperation in those letters was definitely felt. Bless Rhodey. He joins in May and that's two chapters away! Then we'll get some answers *crosses fingers*. So that's how Whitney kidnapped Pepper. One question answered. But now I've got another; Who sent Pepper that letter? Good to see them together. Tony and Pepper are definitely stronger together than apart. Thank-you! – **Who sent that letter, indeed? Was it a good thing or a bad thing that it was sent? What does this mean for Pepperony? These and more questions (instead of answers, lol) to come next! :P

* * *

**Chapter 4: April**

_She was not sure how long she had been trapped inside the dark room. She had not even considered that it was in fact a metal box she had been in and not an actual room until just now. Either way, she knew that whoever had taken her had no intention to let her out – perhaps no intention to let her live to tell her tale. For this she had not planned, and after what she could only imagine were days of struggle, she had finally been unable to continue demanding to be freed. She was tired, hungry, scared, cold, and in pain, so when she heard the door to her new prison being opened, and she finally saw the first sign of light in days, she could not help but try to run to it as fast as her tired body could take her._

_ Her unexpected jolt of adrenaline was short lived, however. Before she was mere feet from the exit, her captor appeared from behind the door and punched her square in the face. The redhead hit the ground with a loud thud, the air expelled from her lungs, and her hands flew to her face to try to ease the excruciating ache the blood vessels bursting had left behind. The tears appeared even before she had hit the cold floor, and when she finally regained enough composure to look up, her eyes widened in surprise at what she saw._

_ "Whi-Whitney?"_

_ "Hi, Pepper," the blonde smirked. "I'm surprised that you lived through your first sentence."_

_ Pepper gulped._

"_First sentence? What… what are you talking about? Why did you take me? How… how are you even here?"_

_ "Still asking too many questions at once, I see," Whitney shook her head in fake disappointment. "And here I was hoping you'd shut your mouth, for once."_

_ "Whitney, what gives? What's going on? Tell me, right now!"_

_ The blonde's initial response was to walk towards Pepper, sit on her stomach so that she could not move, and then pressed her left hand around the redhead's neck. Pepper tried fighting her off, but after the three-day ordeal she had lived through, there was no way her body would be able to do what her mind told her she needed to do to survive._

_ "Can't breathe, can you?" Whitney whispered in Pepper's right ear._

_ Pepper's choking sounds were the girl's only response, which only made Whitney's eerie smile that much more menacing to the redhead._

_ "Do you feel like your life is ending? Do you feel a burn in your lungs, a void in your chest? Good. That's how __**I**__ felt when Tony stole my father from me. That's how __**I**__ felt when he chose __**you**__ over __**me**__!"_

_"Whit… ney… he… I…"_

_ "Shut up!" Whitney spat and then got up from Pepper's body, but only to kick her hard in Pepper's left side with her thick boot. Pepper felt the little air she had just gathered leave her again, which only prompted the blonde to continue her angry speech when she realized that the ginger was not going to be able to say anything at all. For once, Pepper had to be the quiet one, and Whitney would be the one to talk nonstop. _

"_I know that you two are together now! I know that he asked you to be with him! I KNOW that he loves you!"_

_ Pepper moaned in pain as she tried to respond to Whitney, but the pain of a broken rib made it difficult – practically impossible – for the redhead to say anything to save her life from the deranged blonde. All Pepper could do was inhale deeply in the hopes that the pain would just go away on its own, just about now._

_ "Don't deny it, Groupie. I saw you two together. I saw him pressing your hand to his chest when you hugged him from behind! I saw it when he kissed you… and I saw you kissing him back!"_

_ Pepper pressed her eyes together and held back a whimper. She had the slight suspicion that if Whitney heard her make any sound, that it would only be taken as a sign of defiance or denial of her words. She was not going to deny what she felt for Tony. She was not going to deny what they had done, and even if it got her killed, she would tell Whitney what she really thought of her when she became able to put together coherent words. Then again, she could not think about any of that at the moment, because what worried the redhead the most right now was the fact that Whitney knew of something that had happened between her and Tony, while alone in the Makluan lab._

_ "And to think he was ready to sue me to be with you," Whitney cackled. "But I still took you from him, in the end. You still left him to come with me."_

_ Pepper opened one eye to stare up at Whitney while the blonde took out her mask and placed it on her face to show the redhead what she knew that Pepper already suspected was true. It only took a second, but when instead of Whitney or Madame Masque, Pepper saw Loretta Potts standing before her, Pepper knew that she had bitten off more than she could chew._

_ "I hope you like long retreats, Pet. You and I are going to have some girl time… alone."_

xxxXXXxxx

It was not his bed he woke up in and, for an instant, he forgot where he was. He had been sleeping alone for months now, first on a couch, and then in his bed at the Stark Solutions penthouse. When his eyes saw the still unacquainted setting around him and his hand felt the cold, empty side of the bed, the genius panicked for a moment, fearing that the last three days had been a dream.

But then he heard and smelled breakfast being made, and he knew it was _not_ a dream at all.

He rolled himself off the bed and walked straight to the bathroom to wash up. He almost tripped on one of the travel bags that Jarvis had packed for him a few days ago, but he was able to jump over it at the last second. They were supposed to leave the penthouse for only a couple of days, but his butler and old friend had insisted that the couple needed more than just a few days alone. In the end, Tony had ended up with enough packed belongings to last him two weeks. He did not plan on staying at their new place – the Rhodes' former home – for a long time, but Tony did have to agree with Jarvis that it was good to have a change of scenery once in a while.

Unbeknownst to the redhead and the inventor, everyone else was currently at Stark Solutions, cleaning up the penthouse, giving it a spruce up, and removing all reminders of the death of baby James. It was not as if they did not miss the little boy, or as if they were still not mourning him, but if they wanted Tony and Pepper to move on with their lives, they had to complete the sad task of renovating the nursery for them, while they were away. It was clear to their friends and family that the couple would not be able to do this task themselves, so that left them to complete the dreaded job.

After using the facilities, washing his face, and brushing his teeth, Tony practically bounced off the walls as he headed to the kitchen. It had been a while since Pepper had made breakfast for them, mostly due to the fact that she had been busy with work and school. But now that she had graduated and that they were still taking a break from CEO business – and the fact that they were now back together – she had been cooking for them every day since Jarvis had kicked them both out of the penthouse; the day after she had found Tony crumbling down in James' room.

Tony was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, as he was not truly certain that this was actually happening to him. Just a week ago, he had been sure that his life as he had known it was over. Yet now, here he was: falling asleep next to his wife at night, waking up to the smell of homemade food, sharing every meal with her, and spending the entire day alone together, doing whatever they felt like doing at the time.

Although, he could not say that everything was back to normal. There was obviously still some getting used to being as close as they had once been. He still hesitated to touch her, even kiss her. In fact, they had not actually really kissed at all since she had come back. They had held hands, hugged, and there had been kisses placed on cheeks, heads, foreheads, and hands, but neither of them had initiated more intimate physical contact that had once been so common between them.

They were still to talk about how they wanted to fix their unsolved issues, and there was still the pending conversation of what to do about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s contract with Tony's life. Many issues were still unresolved and unspoken of. For now, however, the main concern Tony had was making sure that he and Pepper reconnected in all the ways they had been united before. There would always be time to discuss other matters, and they both knew that they could tackle anything together as long as everything was alright between them. Both of them had every intention to do just that: be who they were before tragedy had struck.

He found her right where he knew she would be, and he smiled so wide that his cheeks hurt. The scene was familiar to him – sentimental, actually – sans the fact that this Pepper had shorter hair again, was not listening to music via an MP3 player but through the sound system she had installed in the home, was not making pancakes but French toast, and was not dressed in work attire but was wearing a practically see-through pink nighty that barely covered the parts of her body that Tony was currently trying to admire from afar.

And, above all the subtle differences, was the fact that the last time he had caught the redhead dancing while cooking, she had not been his wife – not even his girlfriend, at that; she had been just the girl he shared an apartment with. The friend who had lost her memory and had recently regained it only to have it scrambled again by Gene Khan under request of Tony Stark.

How much the times had changed!

Not wanting to push the boundaries of physical interaction they had unofficially set when they had split up, but also being unable to resist himself, Tony walked over to the ginger, placed his hands on her hips and set his chin on her right shoulder. Pepper was startled for a second, but when she remembered that it was just her boy genius who was standing behind her, she closed her eyes and pressed her back against his chest.

"Good morning, Tony," she began. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah," he said and then tested the waters by kissing the junction of her neck and shoulder. "You?"

"I did," she replied. She then exhaled slowly and through her mouth when she felt Tony tighten his hands on her and leave a trail of soft kisses up her neck. She opened her eyes again when he took a step back to let her tend to the food, made himself useful by setting the table for them, and then took a moment to lower the volume of the music playing in the background.

"What's the plan for today, Pep?"

Pepper smiled at hearing him call her by her nickname. It had been a while since she had last heard it from him in a tender manner, and she had no idea how she had survived without him and his voice for so long.

She made sure that the toast was ready for serving, and as Tony finished setting up the plates and poured coffee for the both of them, she took the still steaming food to the dining table.

"I have a few things in mind," Pepper said. "It depends on what you wanna do."

"Well, I'd like to talk about a few things with you, but other than that, I'm up for whatever you want."

"Alright," she said after she finished placing the toast on both plates, and then sat down across the table to face the inventor. "In that case, I'd like for us to revisit Happy's position at the company. He's graduating in two weeks, and I'd like for him to finally work for us full-time."

"Other than being Iron Man from now on, you mean?" Tony asked while he cut up a piece of his toast.

"Yup. Other than that."

Tony nodded along and looked pensive for a moment as he chewed his food. Once he swallowed it down, he washed the remnants with coffee and gave Pepper a curious look.

"What position did you have in mind for him?"

"I was thinking something that uses what he's learned."

"A physical trainer?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. I was thinking that maybe we can open a gym at the company for the employees to use during their breaks, or before or after work. We can maybe even install showers and lockers and such. Other companies have this option for their employees. I don't see why we can't do the same."

"Mmhhh," Tony took another bite of his food. "That's actually a good idea. I kinda like that. So, what would Happy do then? Be one of the trainers? Maybe the head manager of the gym?"

Pepper shrugged and played with her fork.

"Perhaps. I haven't told him anything, yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first."

"I think we can do it. In fact," Tony began before he bit his bacon. "Why don't we go all out on the employee perks and add a day-care facility for the employees' kids?"

The moment the words left his mouth, both he and Pepper flinched and looked down at their plates. The silence that followed his statement was cold and bitter, but his hand on hers from across the table made her able to swallow the brief reminder that their son would not be among those babies and young children that would be watched over at the building.

Her eyes traveled from their now joined hands to his face. With a single look between them, he apologized for bringing up the topic, and she silently told him that she knew it had not been his intention. He further stressed his apology by kissing her hand, and she gave him a smile to prove to him that he had nothing to worry about. Once he let go of her hand, she used it to lift the orange juice carton he had brought to the table with him, and she quickly served them both a glass for each.

"Anyway," he cleared his throat. "How about we meet with the Employee Engagement committee next week and we let them know about the idea?"

"Sounds good," Pepper replied. "It's been a while since we've met with any of them. But this also means that we have to start attending board meetings again."

"Ugh," Tony rolled his eyes. "I don't know about you, babe, but I haven't missed those at all. Nothing good ever happens in those meetings."

Pepper chuckled and shook her head to agree with him, but her laughter did not last long when the current conversation reminded her of what she wanted to talk to Tony about. She knew that Tony was absolutely correct in his statement: nothing good ever came out of board meetings, especially when she was around. And nothing good ever came out of talking about them either; such as would be the case right now.

She took a sip of her juice before her eyes wandered behind the inventor, her gaze showing she was suddenly a million miles away. Tony gave her a moment to put together whatever thoughts she was clearly trying to reconcile within her, and when she sighed loudly and looked back at him once more, Tony put down his fork, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and rested his forearms on the table.

Pepper took in a deep breath she slowly exhaled; she wondered when the hell they had become so proficient at reading each other's mind. She knew that they had grown closer over the years, and that sometimes a simple glance was all that was needed between them to convey an entire idea or thought, but she had honestly believed that the time they had spent apart had tarnished that connection. Then again, perhaps it was due to _that_ separation that they were now more aware of the others' words and non-verbal cues. Or perhaps, it had always been there, but she had not stopped to realize how deep the connection truly was. Either way, she could tell that Tony knew something important was about to be said, and he was ready to give her his undivided attention at the moment.

"Tony, I… I hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. I… I know you didn't know about the paper you signed for them. I know you didn't know what Extremis did to him."

Suddenly, the delicious toast that she had made for him was no longer as appetizing as it had been a second before.

"And I don't know why they did it," she continued. "At least I'm not sure yet. But I intend to find out. I think… I think Fury is hiding something from us. I don't know what it is, but I think it's something big. I think S.H.I.E.L.D. is on to us. I… I think… I think that…"

Pepper cleared her throat and looked down at her plate, unsure of whether to continue the conversation or not, as it was clearly upsetting them both. This time alone with him was supposed to be for emotional uplifting and relief, not for recon and theorizing. Yet, the information she had been gathering for weeks was nagging at her to be shared with the one person in the world that would understand her suspicions and doubts.

"You think, what, Pep?"

She stared into his eyes again, and after biting her lower lip to fight back tears of anger, she spoke once more.

"I think… I think S.H.I.E.L.D. killed him, Tony. I think S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to get rid of us."

Tony opened his mouth to retort, but he immediately closed it back up before he said something he would later regret. Pepper deserved to be heard. She deserved for her theory to be thoroughly dissected and analyzed before he completely dismissed the possibilities at hand. In the past, whenever Pepper had come up with farfetched ideas, he had almost immediately canned her rather fantasy-like thoughts. But this was not the same Pepper she had been before. This was not the same girl that had once thought she had seen Thor at the mall.

Throughout the years, she had proven herself to be great at piecing together seemingly unconnected information that everyone else, including himself, had overlooked. And when Tony remembered that she had been the only one to realize that something was off with Loretta Potts, and that she had also been the first one to find out what the Maggia had been doing for months, Tony decided it was best to give her an opportunity to elaborate her idea.

"Go on."

"OK," she rubbed her forehead with her right hand, ordering her thoughts. "There's a lot in there. Just… just hear me out, OK?"

"I will. Tell me, Pepper."

"OK. Well… don't you find it interesting that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know that Whitney was gone? I mean, they knew what she could do. They've held the Hulk in there, for fuck's sake. How was it that no one found out she was gone until you told them? Did they never think to check why she wasn't eating the food they brought her?"

Tony frowned momentarily as he too recalled the moment he had confronted Fury about his lack of security procedures, which had enabled the blonde to roam free.

"_And I'm telling you she's not here," Iron Man responded. "Not only is she not here, but she has Pepper."_

_ "Pepper? I thought she was with you?"_

_"She's not. Her mom – or who we all thought was her mom – took her away two weeks ago. Her real mom just showed up at school this morning when she couldn't get ahold of Virgil or Pepper on their phones, and asked me where they both were. The woman has been out of the country for months, and there is only one person I know that can take the shape of other people."_

_"Maybe that woman is pulling your leg. Once we get to the cell you'll see Miss Stane is still there."_

_ "I hope so," Tony said as they stood outside the containment unit they had come to search for. Fury took a step toward the keypad on the wall and pressed the override code to unlock the cell. The first thing that they saw was the untouched meal by the serving tray compartment by the corner of the room._

_"She never eats it," Fury explained as they walked closer to the body resting on the bed attached to the back wall of the cell. "See? She's right here."_

_ "And, she, whoever she is, is dead," Tony said before he retracted his faceplate and walked up to the woman lying on the makeshift bed._

Fury had seemed genuinely shocked to learn that Whitney had escaped, seemingly from right under his nose. Tony doubted that S.H.I.E.L.D. had intentionally let the homicidal girl go free, but it did pose the question: what could have had them so occupied that they had missed all the signs that a psychopath had escaped their custody?

"And then," Pepper continued, "Then they tried calling you to the Helicarrier to deal with the E-zombies. He was so adamant that you were there. At first, I thought it was because he just didn't trust me. But now I'm not sure. And how come he didn't know jack shit about the Maggia? He didn't even help us! He… he just let us go in there to deal with an organized crime group! Isn't that_ their_ job?"

"And then when AIM tried to kidnap Dr. Ross," Tony said, suddenly seeing the connected dots that Pepper was pointing him to, "Fury never sent anyone to help. The whole thing was televised! He should've known we couldn't take them all!"

"Right! And then Rhona attacked us… with our own tech! Similar tech we had sold S.H.I.E.L.D. before we cut them off. How would Rhona know about all of this? How was she even able to know what we've been doing–"

"Unless someone told her," Tony finished for her. "She had all these weapons… the drone… and she said…"

"_Or what? You're still gonna kill me! You're still gonna kill me because I killed your FAKE brother."_

"_No! That's not it!" Rhona spat. "You don't know a thing! You don't know why you're about to die!"_

"_You mean it's not because I broke your toy? Is it because you know I'll always be smarter than you?"_

"_NO!" the Goth girl screamed at the top of her lungs. "It's not because of that! It's because you have a target sign painted on your back!"_

"_What?"_

"_YES! __**Someone**__ wants you dead, Stark. You have a price on your head," she held her finger against the trigger. "And so does she," she added with a sinister smile. "So does her __**ginger**__ head."_

"The bounty," they both said aloud.

Tony narrowed his eyes, angrily recalling what Rhona had told him about the bounty before he had killed her for it; before Nick Fury had used his actions to lock him up in the Helicarrier to run all kinds of tests on him.

"_I-I…" she whined. "I don't know what you're talking about. I-I… I didn't send anything to your apartment. I swear!"_

_"Stop lying!" Tony spat, increased his hold on her head and made the girl whimper in pain. "Who wants us dead? WHO?"_

_ "I don't know who! I don't!"_

_ "LIAR!" Tony said, closed his faceplate and tightened his grasp on her. "WHO? Who is it?"_

_ "I DON'T KNOW! All I know is that there's money involved! I… I didn't even care all that much about the money… all… all I wanted was revenge!"_

_ "Revenge?" Tony scoffed. "You want to talk about revenge? I'll show you revenge!"_

_**"Stark, stop it!"**_

_"SHUT UP!"_

_ "Please, no," Rhona begged. "Please, please don't kill me."_

_ "Then tell me who put a hit on us!"_

_ "I swear I don't know! I just got the invitation! I don't know who it is!"_

_"The… the __**invitation**__?" Tony was taken aback and, for a second, loosened his clutch on her head. "What invitation?"_

_ "A video… I got a video… It was sent to the institute. The voice… it was distorted… and there was no face… the voice… the voice said that there was a bounty out for your head… and Pepper's… and when the news said she was pregnant, the baby was added to the list… That's all I know. That's ALL I know!"_

_ "Where's the video? Do you still have it?"_

_ "No!" she sobbed. "The instructions said to burn it… so I did…"_

_ Tony's anger returned with that. "Who else is in this group? Who else is out to get me?"_

_ Rhona blinked back a few tears, took in a deep breath and replied. "Everyone… it was sent to everyone."_

_"Everyone? What do you mean 'everyone'? Who is everyone?"_

_ "Everyone you've ever hurt. Everyone you've ever crossed paths with. And… and you should not even be here. You-you should just let me go. You should be with Pepper because… because the highest bounty is for her head… for her dead, __**detached**__ head."_

"A price for our heads," Tony said. "A bounty that only a powerful person – a powerful _group_ – would be able to pay out. The reason why Nick didn't answer my 911 when Whiplash, Unicorn and Black Knight attacked you. The reason why he hasn't done anything about this bounty! This is why he made me resign from being Iron Man! He wanted me to not be able to defend myself… to protect you!"

"To protect Jimmy," Pepper said. "He wanted to leave Jimmy helpless. Take him out when we least expected it."

Tony growled. His knuckles turned white and his eyes were on fire. Pepper was in no better condition, but Tony's anger steamed from something else that Pepper was yet to consider.

"The crows," Tony snarled. "The ghost-like intruder at the penthouse. It was all a way to kick us out. For us to send Howie to another location so that he would be alone."

"Without us," Pepper said and closed her eyes. "So that he would be without us."

Tony groaned loudly, stood up from the chair, and began pacing the living room. Pepper stood up after him, and although she did not get in his way, she remained close by in case she needed to stop him from getting himself arrested again. Tony closed his eyes and shook his head, and when the redhead noticed that he had begun hyperventilating – his lack of Extremis-induced control clearly affecting him, she approached him and placed her hands on his chest to remind him that she was still around.

"This is why he did all those tests on me," Tony spat. "He wasn't trying to help me! He was trying to find a way to counter Extremis! He wanted to find a weakness, to use it on our son! Fury's probably the reason I had to give up Extremis, too! He's probably the one that made it worse! He's just taking my weapons away… just like… just like…"

"We took his," the ginger finished for Tony and the inventor again groaned in return. "Just like we took his."

"Son of a…" Tony mumbled and closed his eyes. "That fucking, sorry son of a bitch! I can't believe… I can't believe that we… that _he_… I'm gonna… I'm gonna break his fucking neck!"

"Tony, calm down," Pepper began even though she was as upset as he. She at least had had some time to swallow the news that she was relaying to him. She at least had had the time to let some of her frustration out when she had first started putting together the pieces of information she had gathered so far. Tony, on the other hand, was just now facing the impact that her theories had, and without Extremis in him to help him balance his thoughts and anger, this situation was ten times worse for him than for her.

"Breathe, Tony. Just _breathe_."

With those words coming from her, Tony was briefly transported back in time when he had thought Pepper dead by the Maggia, after he had seen the video he had been sent at the motel. Her tone and request over the molar implant had been very similar, and even though she had stated the same words now – as she had done so, years ago – to help calm him down, they only reminded him of what the Maggia had done to her. The words of encouragement only reminded him that she would never stop being in danger because of what they had together.

And this thought sprinkled salt on the open wound of his heart.

Her right hand snaked around the back of his neck, and her left hand found his, keeping them both at their side. She then used her right hand to lead him to press his forehead against hers, and she closed her eyes as well. It took Tony a moment to stop hyperventilating. But once he did start breathing normal again, he pressed a kiss to Pepper's nose.

"Pepper," he swallowed hard. "I'm sorry I yelled. I… I just… all of this… it's… it's just too much."

"I know," she said and pulled away slightly from his face to be able to stare at him. "And we don't even know if it's even true, but I don't see any other reason why S.H.I.E.L.D. has done everything to keep tabs on us."

"No, I get it. It makes sense. It just – it makes me angry, Pepper. It makes me want to get Extremis back just so that I can crash the Helicarrier to the ground."

"It's not worth it, Tony. We… we aren't even sure yet. I need more information. I will get the information I need. I just…. I need time."

"I know," he opened his eyes and stared at hers. "And I'll help you."

"No," she shook her head. "You won't."

"Pepper–"

"No, Tony," she said tenderly but firmly. "You've risked your neck for me too many times. Let me do something for you. Let me stick my neck out for you. I owe you that much."

"But–"

"No," she said again. "This time, _I_ protect _you_."

Tony opened his mouth to complain about her stubbornness, but in the end nothing came out. He shut his mouth once more, stared at Pepper's pleading eyes, and then against the mood of the moment, he gave her a small smile. He knew the situation was precarious. He knew that if S.H.I.E.L.D. was behind everything that had happened to them in the past few years, then Pepper was risking a whole lot by hacking into the database as often as she probably was already doing. Bad-mouthing Fury during a board meeting or during a mission was one thing. Breaking federal laws and international treaties was a whole different ball game; one that was not avoided by simply paying up someone for their faults.

"We can't tell anyone, Pep. No one but us should know this."

"I know," she nodded. "I haven't told anyone. Just you. I wanted to tell someone. And it's only you who I trust completely. I can't put anyone else in danger by knowing this. I mean, I don't want _you_ in danger either, but this is what we signed up for. They either take us _both_ out, or _we_ take_ them_ down with us."

"And we will," Tony whispered back to her and held her face between his hands. "We'll take them down with us."

xxxXXXxxx

_"Tony…" Pepper coughed. "He's going… to save me…"_

_ The words she had just spoken were supposed to sound threatening, but with her body struggling to process the rotten food and contaminated water that Whitney had been feeding her for days, Pepper knew that her words sounded nothing more than empty to the blonde_

_ At first, she thought that she only had to hold up her tough charade for a couple of days, tops, but Tony was yet to find out about her message – or so she hoped. The only other possibility for why Tony was yet to show his face to save her was because he had no intention of doing so. Maybe he had just chosen to not investigate the clue she had left behind any further. Maybe he was relieved about not having to deal with her any longer._

_ Maybe she was going to die here – maybe even today._

_ Her bruises were getting larger, some of her cuts were infected, and she was sure that the broken rib she had was going to heal improperly. She had not been able to look at herself in a mirror, but she could still tell and __**feel**__ how banged up she really was. And if her body kept fighting to stay alive the way it had so far, Pepper was certain that she had much more suffering to come._

_ The "sentences" Whitney had put her through for the past week and a half were becoming worse and worse; the redhead could not imagine how many more horrible ways to "get back at her" for "stealing Tony away," the blonde had been able to concoct and place on her list. The first sentence of being in a dark box with lack of food and drinks had been just the start, and now the only food and water she received was not at all fit to have. It would not surprise Pepper if one day Whitney fed her a cyanide tea with a dessert of rat poison pie._

_ When the pain was at its worst – like it had been this morning when Whitney had pulled some fingernails from the ginger with a pair of pliers – Pepper had almost wished that Whitney did poison her food, if only to not find out what other torture techniques she would come up with next. Unfortunately for the spunky girl, Whitney had no intention of cutting short her vengeance siege._

_ Even if she had almost choked on the symposium ticket Whitney had just made her eat, Pepper did not give the blonde the pleasure of seeing her beg for her life – at least not yet, but she knew that soon she would. She would hold off on it, however, as long as she could. The last thing she wanted to give Whitney was a reason to feel as if she had won the war. Perhaps Whitney had outfoxed everyone she knew, including her boy genius, and maybe Whitney had been smart enough to think up all the clever ways she was torturing her with, but it would be Pepper's last resort to ask her to stop._

_ Only much later, after Pepper had been severely beaten with various objects, had her leg broken, had her hair cut and bleached against her will, and Tony had still not shown up even after three weeks had gone by since she had left New York City, would Pepper Potts finally scream for the blonde to stop._

_ Regrettably, Whitney never did._

xxxXXXxxx

Nick Fury had foolishly believed that if James Howard Stark was no longer in the picture, that Tony Stark and Pepper Potts-Stark would have no reaction other than to drift apart. The physical distance between them and the emotional sorrow they carried should have separated them forever. It should have left them vulnerable, out in the open. It should have made them easy targets – as their son had been. However, somehow the tragedy had pushed them closer together, even after they had briefly split apart. Tragedies and obstacles always pushed them back together, made them stronger, and Nick Fury was sick and tired of that.

Why were they not dead by now?

At this rate, he would be dead before them! And that was something that the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. refused to accept. He had a mission to accomplish, and even if it became his last, he would not fail!

It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide his burden from the people around him, especially those that had known him for years. Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Maria Hill had all dropped hints about what they suspected about him, but he always reminded them that he was old – much older than them, and that what they were witnessing was nothing more than the natural passing of time.

Except that it was not. And he was uncertain of how long he would continue to be able to lie to everyone. Including himself.

Nick stared at his watch and sighed. His appointment was late, but then again, that was no surprise. It was a miracle that he had been granted this audience in the first place, and even though his face would denote how irked he was to be kept waiting, for the sake of his mission and pride, he was going to bite his tongue. That was all he could do for now; and perhaps until it all came to an end: shut his mouth and do as told.

"Nick," the General's secret 8 o'clock appointment began when he walked inside their clandestine meeting location, "I apologize for my delay. My employer had the last-minute need to have… words with us."

"I understand," Nick reply. "I know how _demanding_ your employer can be."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," Aldrich said with a shake of the head. "At least no one else died today. Although, Kevin Kowalowski came close. But he just ended up with a flesh wound."

Nick Fury visibly flinched. "That's always a plus."

Aldrich Killian nodded in response as he took the chair across from Nicholas Fury. The General gave the scientist time to organize his thoughts and get comfortable, and once the man was ready to relay his progress, Fury sat back in the chair and tried to relax – even though he knew that he never would until this mission was over and done with.

"Nick, I need more time."

Nick closed his eye and sighed. "What is it now, Killian? S.H.I.E.L.D., we… _I_'ve given you YEARS to complete the Extremis serum! To perfect it! What is the hold up now?"

"A new strain has surfaced," Killian explained in a tone that disturbed the General, and not because it was insulting or whiny, but because it made Killian seemed madder than he already was.

"What new strain? Tony Stark's version of it?"

"Not at all. Tony Stark's version of Extremis, the TSE, is a non-replicable fluke. It was born out of chance and factors that will never occur again. Maya and I have moved on from trying to exploit the TS-Extremis version – it's faulty anyway, easily susceptible to corruption. We've developed a new version of Extremis. One that can cure your illness… everyone's illnesses, no matter how advanced they are."

"So, if you've developed it already, how come I can't use it? I'm running out of time, Killian."

"Aren't we all?"

"My doctor has given me months to live."

"Oh," Aldrich furrowed his brow. "Treatment not going well? You've been at it for years! I wasn't aware that your situation was so… perilous."

"If it weren't," Fury began, "Then I wouldn't have joined you in your little science experiment. I wouldn't be doing everything possible to prevent anyone from finding out that your boss put out the hit on Tony Stark and his wife. You and your step-daughter would be behind bars by now."

"Oh, please," Aldrich replied with a scoff. "You have nothing on us to arrest us other than a lengthy history of relentless scientific inquiry and research activities. And if you tried to pull one of the tricks you're known for, you'd be on my employer's bad side. And I know you just _don't_ want to be. You need him – you need us. Especially me. Especially _now_. I've heard that having a brain tumor is an awful way to die."

Nick narrowed his eye. "So is dying under the hand of your boss. Or so I've heard."

"It is, just like_ their_ son found out a while ago. But he needs me. He won't kill me so easily. You, on the other hand… you've got nothing to offer in exchange, Nick. At least not anymore. His words, by the way. Not mine."

"I DO have something to exchange."

"Really?" Aldrich leaned over the table. "What would that be?"

"The Starks. I can offer him to get rid of the only thing – the only _people_ – that is preventing him from carrying out his plan."

Aldrich snickered, disbelief written all over his features and posture. "Do you know how many people have_ tried_ to carry out the bounty and have failed? Year after year? Rhona Erwin. AIM. The Maggia – under Sasha Hammer's lousy directions, might I add. The one who came closest to actually killing him and the girl was the Ghost, and he _declined_ the bounty invitation. He was smart enough to figure out he would get more money by blackmailing Stark for life than by killing him and her."

"That is true," Nick conceded. "But none of them have what I have."

"And what is that?"

"The element of surprise," Fury explained. "Stark expected them to attack. He prepared for his enemies to show up. But what he would never expect would be for his own, for S.H.I.E.L.D., to stab him in the back."

"Mmhhh," Aldrich said with an eerie smile before he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He then stared Fury up and down for a long time and, after the silence that had befallen them ended, he finally extended his arm to him.

"On behalf of my employer, I accept your offer, Fury. The Starks, for _your_ life."

xxxXXXxxx

It was the first time in months that everyone was gathered at the same location for a joyful reason – the last time it had been during the Thanksgiving get-together at the Rhodes, last year. After weeks of doubt and misery, the friends and family that the redhead and the inventor had acquired over the years were all gathered in their home, the Stark Solutions penthouse, to celebrate the accomplishments one of their own: Harold Hogan.

From her standing position by the balcony exit, Pepper admired the blissful scene before her. It reminded her so much of the Stark Solutions Christmas Party when Tony had proposed to her, as everyone present had a smile on their faces and shared cheerful stories of their own. Even after an innocent comment from Happy's parents regarding how proud they were of their only son – which had undoubtedly made Tony and Pepper flinch at remembering their own son was gone – the mood of the party had not been terribly affected by it in the end.

It was Happy's graduation celebration after all, and none of them, except the young Stark couple, of course, yet knew that Happy was being promoted to Recreational Activities Director within the company. Tony and Pepper had wanted to save the best for last, and had decided to first celebrate all the other accomplishments and good news their friends and family had to share with everyone. It felt right to leave aside the sadness for now, and to just focus on enjoying the time spent with the ones they loved.

Trish and Howard had announced their marriage to the world during the Stark Solutions Annual Christmas Party, just as they had planned, and the board had been more than happy for them; Mitch included, to their surprise. Pepper could not help the smile that came to her face whenever she saw Trish and Howard interact; it was obvious even to a blind person how much they cared for one another: this only confirmed where her own husband had inherited the ability to develop such devotion that he expressed to the woman he loved.

Virgil and Diane had gotten married as well, at city hall to top it off, claiming that a big, public wedding was neither wanted nor needed by either of them at their age. Pepper knew that they had avoided a celebration because of the baby's passing, and it made her feel guilty that she had not been aware sooner of how much her actions and attitude had affected everyone else's life. She still felt a little ashamed of herself for it, even after a long and heartfelt talk with her father, but she was starting to let go of the past she could not alter any more than she could control the natural passing of time.

Even her adoptive mother, Loretta Potts, was present at the party. It was still odd to be around the woman that had hardly had involvement in her life when growing up. To be honest with herself, it sometimes made her wonder why her mother was trying so hard to reacquaint with her. At first, Pepper had thought that it was because there was still maybe some unfinished business between her and Virgil, but those ideas had dissipated when the redhead had found out about Diane's involvement with her father. Moreover, she had also recently discovered that Loretta Potts herself was dating – a _woman_, in fact – and said woman had been rather expressive of her feelings for Loretta throughout the entire celebratory event. Loretta did not seem to mind.

Then there was Jarvis and Bambi, who Pepper could tell were starting to get to know each other better – or maybe they already had for a while and she was just now noticing this fact. Tony had not mentioned anything to her yet, so the ginger assumed that her husband would be shocked to hear the news once Pepper confirmed it to be true. It was more than obvious, however, since Jarvis had always been quite reserved when it came to his personal life. But ever since the two of them had arrived together, hours ago, the butler was yet to leave their Executive Assistant's side.

If only Rhodey was here as well!

Rhodey's parents were of course present, even if they had spent a lot of their free time traveling the country and had returned to the city just for this occasion. After selling their home, Roberta and David had done exactly what they had wanted to do with their money and time: they had bought a smaller home and an RV, and had used it since January to move around. Rhodey was not due back until next month, and even then, the man would just be relocating from Colorado to the Helicarrier. In a few weeks, Rhodey's second home would be her own one, and she could not wait to return the favor to her friend. If it were not for Rhodey's meddling and insistence, she and Tony may have never gotten together once more, for good, this time.

Then again, there were many people to thank for that. Loraine Jones was one of them, as were her family and friends – even the one friend that had declined to attend the party tonight: Gene Khan. The thought of the Mandarin alter ego made her wide smile turn into a noticeable frown.

She was yet to hear from him in weeks – ever since they had kissed at her house. Other than from the Makluan energy readings she could sometimes find by using their Stark 1 satellite, Pepper had no idea what was the state of Gene Khan. She did not know if he was mad at her, or just wanted to put some distance between them to sort out his feelings and thoughts. She did not know if he was avoiding her altogether and forever, or if he was just too damn busy with keeping his organized empire in tip-top shape.

Either way, it was very unlike him not to respond to her texts or calls.

_I hope he's alright_, Pepper thought and closed her eyes only to open them again almost immediately when she felt herself being pulled away from the balcony doors and pressed against the wall outside, away from the view of their guests' eyes.

"Tony?" she breathed into his left ear when she realized he had buried his face into her neck, his hands resting on her hips as he tremblingly kissed her exposed skin there.

"Tony," she repeated. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," he whispered to her but did not move. Instead, he intensified his hold on her hips and hid more of his face between her jaw and her left shoulder. "I'm just… it's just… I need… I saw…"

"What is it?" Pepper asked in a worried tone. "What's wrong?"

Even after asking the question for a third time, Tony failed to respond at all. His body continued to shake. He just held on tighter and tighter to her form, as if his ability to remain standing depended on it. Pepper's left arm surrounded his waist. The fingers of her right hand combed the hair on the back of his head, and when she felt him struggle to say anything to her, when he continued to hold on to her for dear life, she finally realized what was happening to him.

He was having another panic attack.

The redhead closed her eyes and pressed her left cheek against whatever she could of his still hidden face. She also intensified her grip on him, and allowed him to take his time to recover. There was nothing that needed to be said, nothing she could possibly communicate to him to make the episode move along any faster or get any better. All she could do was hold him and wait until he was ready to face reality again.

As she held onto her husband, Pepper's mind wandered to the first time he had scared her with scenarios such as the present one. They had been at their home lab at the penthouse, working on a cure for the corruption of Extremis in him, and he had suddenly fallen to the floor. At first, Pepper had thought that he had tripped since she had not been staring at him when it happened, but when she had asked him if he was OK and he had not responded, she had looked up to see him curled up in a ball.

The scene had reminded her of the time she had returned home from school to see him on his knees, baby James protected with his body, and a force field created from the one armored gauntlet he had had on his hand surrounding them both. She had not been sure if he had been having flashbacks to the incident, very much so as she sometimes did in plain daylight to the many horrible experiences she had lived through. But when it had become evident to her that he was having difficulty breathing, she had panicked right along with him and had called 911.

It had taken several hours, plenty of medication, and sedatives at the hospital to calm him down, and to this day she was not sure what he had thought about or had seen that had scared him to the point of almost having a heart attack. In the end, it did not matter what it was – there were too many options to choose from, unfortunately. What truly mattered was that he learned how to move past the episodes, just as she had, and that he always returned to the real world – to her. Although, it still scared her that one day he would not come back, even if nothing in their data showed that him not recovering was not a possibility. She still feared that one day, whatever chemical imbalance the dormant Extremis in him was causing, would deny him the ability to recognize her, to recognize himself, and that she would lose him to a virus that had once saved his dying heart.

She did not care if she had to be there for him for the rest of her life, monitoring and comforting him through every single panic attack. She did not care if he was never again able to spend the night together with her – so far they had not been able to. She did not care if they never won the case against S.H.I.E.L.D. to recover their freedom to have more kids. Nothing of that scared her. Nothing of that made her want to run away to find an easier life. All that truly frightened her, all that she prayed every day that would never happen, was for Tony to forget her, forget himself – who they were and what they meant to each other; what they had become. Just as she had forgotten about it once.

She did not want the tables to be turned. She did not want to be the one who had to let him go because he did not remember who she was. She was not sure how he had been able to do that for her – and she knew that she was weaker than him in that regard. She did not want to find herself having to be the bigger person and watch him fall in love with someone else; move on with a life that was not with her. She did not see herself being able to be without him, at all.

"I'm… I'm OK now," his voice barely carried over to her ears. "Thanks, Pep… I… I'm good now."

"Are you sure?" she inquired even though his body language spoke to her that he was now composed enough to speak properly again. The only reason why she even asked the question in the first place was because she herself was not ready to release him from her embrace. She was afraid that if he did not take the necessary time to order his thoughts after an attack, that it would slowly but surely chip away the little sanity that was left in him. She was scared beyond belief that he was pushing himself to the limits of his lucidness just so as not to worry her about it.

"Don't hurry it up, Tony. I can wait."

"No. No, Pepper. It's done. It's over. I promise you. It's done."

It took the redhead a few more seconds of him reassuring her before she finally let him pull away from her. He did not go far, anyway, and he actually just rearranged their positions so that she no longer had to stand at an awkward angle to be able to accommodate his taller form. She closed her eyes, rested the back of her head against the wall, and let him caress her face with his nose and lips. When he felt brave enough to brush his lips against hers for the first time in weeks, she did not allow him to move on to another part of her by firmly pressing her mouth onto his.

He hesitated for a nanosecond, but after he inhaled sharply in surprise, he finally kissed her back. It felt both foreign and familiar to him, to be able to taste her once more. It felt as if this was the first kiss they had ever shared, even if he had by now lost track of how many times they had exchanged lip locks. It also felt as this was second-nature to him, easily remembering what made her moan and shiver under his touch. His hands slipped under her blouse, around her waist and lower back, and he then softly scratched the skin there, causing Pepper to open her mouth to his. She was only able to last a few seconds like this before she gasped, pulled away, and looked down between him.

"Sorry," he told her as he licked the taste of her from his lips. "It's too soon, I know. I'm sorry. We… we shouldn't have…"

"No," she shook her head. "It's not that. I… I just…" she cleared her throat. "It's just that there's something I have to tell you before… before we do that again. Or anything else, actually."

"What is it?" Tony asked with concern, head slightly jerking back in the process, and he pulled away to stare at her face. "What's the matter?"

It was now her turn to take a moment to order her own thoughts. Before the dreaded words ever made it out of her mouth, her now free-flowing tears showed her fear of Tony's response. Her fear of losing his trust and his love.

"Pepper, you're scaring me now," he told her and lifted her chin with his hand. "Come on, Pep. Just tell me. What's wrong?"

She nodded to let him know that she was going to tell him the truth, so he gave her a moment to compose herself. She sniffled a little, wiped some of the tears with her hands and the inside part of her blouse, and then looked up to stare at him in the eye.

"When… when I was gone, after I left here, I had a lot of people visit me to help me cheer up – even try to change my mind about the divorce. One person in particular visited me very often, and I spent a lot of time with him. And I mean a LOT of time."

The words _him_ and _a lot_ made Tony knit his brow, and he briefly felt some jealous concern hit him. But then he remembered that this was Pepper – _his_ Pepper, that he was listening to, and he knew that he had nothing to worry about.

"So?" he asked with a one-sided shrug.

"So," she continued. "One day, this person… Gene, he and I… we-we… well…" she exhaled deeply and opened her mouth to finish her sentence, but before she could muster the courage to speak again, Tony beat her to the punch.

"You kissed," he said as if he was just talking about the weather. "You and Gene kissed."

The ginger's eyes widened and the tears instantly returned. For a moment, she was not certain if she herself had said the words or if he had said them for her instead. Worst of all, she found it difficult to read his tone of voice. Was he asking or was he stating a fact? Was he angry or did he not care? How did he even know about that?

"Tony," she swallowed hard. "Me… Gene and I… I-I can explain."

"Explain what? That you kissed? I already knew that."

"W-what?" Pepper was hardly able to say anything else. Her voice was doing a terrible job at staying steady, and Tony was not giving off any signals or body language that she could easily read. Or maybe she was too shocked at realizing that he already knew about her little slip-up. Not to mention, the fact that he had not mentioned anything to her until now made his current response that much more confusing to her.

"Tony… before you say anything… before you get mad… let me… please, let me explain…"

"There's nothing to explain, Pepper," he said, nonchalant. "It was a one-time thing. I… I wasn't there for you and he was… and even if it shouldn't have happened, it did. But it's over now. It meant nothing to you. It was just a mistake."

Pepper shook her head, rubbed her face with her hands to dry her tears, and then looked at him again. His face was as calm and collected as if she had just told him that she had taken a walk down to the park. He was not angry, scared, or sad. In fact, he seemed as if he was already bored with the subject at hand.

Seeing how confused she was about his reaction, Tony chuckled lightly, rolled his eyes, and pulled her back to his chest to speak into her ear.

"Pepper, he told me. He came by and told me what happened, a few days after it did. We had words… we settled it out. And it's alright. We're OK, him and me. And you and me, we're OK, too. There's nothing to worry about."

He had hoped that his little explanation would have calmed her down, but she instead panicked even more and pulled away to stare at him.

"You, uhm, you _settled it out_?" she asked with concern in her voice, slowly beginning to fear that the reason why Gene was yet to talk to her was because of what Tony had done to him at finding out he had essentially made out with his wife.

"How… how _exactly_ did you settle this out? Did you… did he… is he… is he…"

"Dead?" Tony scoffed and shook his head. "As if I could kill the Mandarin. No, I didn't kill him. Or even try to. We just… well, let's just say that we can call it even on the black eye he gave me a few years ago when he found out that I had broken my promise of staying away from you."

"You _punched_ him? Tony! How could you! I can't believe you punched him!"

"You _kissed_ him?" Tony instantly replied. "Pepper! How could you! I can't believe you kissed him!"

"Want to forget about it?" she immediately asked.

"Forget what?" he replied, a small smile on his face.

"Good call," Pepper responded and, after a moment of silence, the two youngsters began to laugh aloud, showing to themselves, and to everyone else who heard them laughing hard, that they were truly ready to move on with life.

The little time of it they had, anyway.

* * *

**A/N:** Oooh, we're halfway there… Oooh, living on a prayer, _again_! This story has only 8 chappies plus the Prologue and the Epilogue, so we're almost done with the point of this arc. I hope the Pepperony in here holds you up until I can update again, and I can't thank you all enough for your continued support. Does anyone remember what happens in May in these stories? Want to take a guess of what's to come next? Leave a review!


	6. Chapter 5

**Guest Review Responses**

**Muah: Wow, my timing is always so perfect! I seem to always check for your update a few hours after you post it! And i dont always check either so i must have some sortt of connection with this fic! Haha! Anyways, anothet great chapter! – **Did you feel this update? Sooner than I thought!

**Someone: Ok, I didn't really like Fury...BUT NOW I HATE HIM! Lol, I liked the last bit, it was funny :D OH, IS MAY THE MONTH PEPPER GETS KIDNAPPED?! (I can't be bothered to go and check! Lazy me :P) Awkward if it isn't though...lol! – **More drama and laughter here… and then more angst… and a big WTF moment. LOL! Thanks for reading!

**Toni: Great, more questions (only kidding ;) Wouldn't have it any other way). Like, what is Fury up to?! Has he really become the villain? Fantastic chapter. It feels like they're steadily moving towards something. Like they're making progress. Thanks for the update! – **They're making LOTS of progress… if you know what I mean… and if you don't, you'll find out here ;)

**Guest: ...I hate Nick. I REALLY HATE NICK. Can you kill him? Pretty please? I know this sounds like the time we all asked for Howie's death. He might turn out to be a good guy but seriousely even if he was severus snape i would still like to watch him burn. Anyway thanks for the chapter. Made my day. – **I should start a poll: who do my Faithful Readers hate most? Maya Hansen, Whitney Stane, Aldrich Killian or Nick "Eye-Patch" Fury? Any takers? What about Miss Jones? The last one kinda redeemed herself, though, helping Tony and Pepper get back together and all. Who knows?

**apps: Loved it...many thanx to update next chappie this soon...initially thought against hope that howie is still alive,all this happenings to keep him safe and alive somewhere but unable to digest that shield was pulling the strings... why.?. what pepperony had done to them?...if time permits willl try to find the cues for may month happenings ...till then take care of yourself and our pepperony.:):):):)** – Awww! I hope you're doing alright, too! Here's some major Pepperony for everyone! Hope you like it!

* * *

**Chapter 5: May**

_"Do you now see that Tony doesn't need you anymore? Does it hurt to find out that he only used you? To know that he's forgotten about you?"_

_ "He… didn't… use… me!" Pepper replied through panting as she tried to gather some oxygen before Whitney continued executing her latest sentence on her. "He… hasn't forgotten… about me!"_

_ "Wrong answer!" Whitney said before she grabbed a hold of Pepper's hair, pulled it tight, and then used it to dunk Pepper's head inside the water-filled barrel once more. Pepper fought to keep her head above the water, but her strength had been slowly leaving her every day. She barely had enough strength to ask Whitney to stop. The water was cold as ice. In fact, the entire location felt icy cold, which made Pepper wonder how remote their location truly was._

_ Just as the redhead felt her lungs were about to give out on her, Whitney pulled her head out of the water again. She shook Pepper's head a few times and took a few chunks of her hair with her until Pepper stopped panting and coughing at the same time. Whitney then pulled back Pepper's head so that she was staring at her. The blonde leaned her head down inches from the ginger, a cynical smile on her face._

_ "Still think he's going to come get you?"_

_ "Y-yes," Pepper said more out of instinct than actual belief; more to piss off the girl than anything else. "And when… when he sees what you did… when he finds out… he-he…"_

_ "He'll realize he's too late. He'll find your dead body, in the middle of nowhere, if at all, and he'll regret ever crossing me."_

_ "No," Pepper whimpered. "He will find me before that. He… he'll save me!"_

_ "No, he won't. He won't save you this time, because he doesn't know you're gone."_

_ "He does!"_

_ "No, he doesn't. I've seen him. He's moved on. He's going to school and living his own life. He's not thinking about you."_

_ "NO!" Pepper yelled with strength she did not know she still had within her. "Tony will NEVER stop searching for me! He'll never stop!"_

_ "He hasn't even started, Pet. He thinks you left him. He thinks you never really loved him at all."_

_ Pepper closed her eyes when she felt the sting of tears hit her. She wanted to believe that Whitney was wrong. She wanted to tell herself that Tony was looking for her, that he DID know she was gone and in danger. But she also knew that Tony was extremely resourceful, and that if he was not here already, it was probably because he did not know anything was wrong._

_ "He'll figure it out," Pepper said. "Sooner or later he'll realize that something is not right."_

_ "If he hasn't already, he never will. He saw your message. And he's following it to a T."_

_ "What… what message?" Pepper asked, trying to deny the reality that Whitney knew where the Makluan Temple was._

_ "Private Eye," Whitney replied with a smirk. "The message you left behind to tell him not to follow you. The message where you told him not to look for you ever again."_

_ Pepper wanted to tell Whitney that she did not know what she was talking about, that she had no idea what she had done and that Tony would soon find out, but when three more days passed and Tony did not show up, Pepper began to give up on life. Nevertheless, she was not about to let the blonde know about that._

xxxXXXxxx

He had spent hours in bed with her, enjoying each other's company in whatever capacity they felt like executing, and even though this was not what Pepper initially envisioned his birthday celebration would be like, she was not going to complain about it at all. Pepper had wanted him to have a good time during his birthday in a manner he was yet to enjoy since they had first met, back at the Academy, but when she had asked him what he wanted to do for the anniversary of his twenty-second year of life, he had simply stated: _"To be with you."_

And he had meant it in _all _possible interpretations of the phrase.

Every May since he had been sixteen, unfortunate events had befallen on or near his birthday: plane crash, failing heart, alien invasion, zombie attack, unwanted wedding engagement, and then imprisonment in a flying fortress. It was not until this year – this particular birthday occasion – that nothing major had occurred to spoil his plans. Granted, he would have preferred to spend the day with his wife AND his son, but only one of them was able to be present in his life.

So he had made it happen: he was spending his birthday with Pepper Potts. In their home. Inside their bedroom. In their bed. All. Day. Long.

Pepper had not truly understood what he had meant with wanting to spend the entire day with her and her only, and it was not until now, when it neared noon, that she realized what his mind had planned for them.

The entire penthouse was in lockdown mode. All the lights were either off or dimmed. Candles illuminated the needed walking paths inside the living room, bedroom and kitchen. Their family and friends had received a notification that the couple was not available for the entire day. Bambi was the gatekeeper for any company-related distractions. Happy Hogan was patrolling the streets as Iron Man. And Jarvis had been tasked with pre-cooking the meals of the day, which Tony had picked up the day before and had been slowly heating and bringing to Pepper in bed.

Today was Tony Stark's birthday, and only an impending, large meteor impact on Earth could ruin his day.

"It's supposed to be _your _birthday," she whispered, almost without a breath, from underneath him as he peppered her bare upper body with kisses while he slowly made love to her. "Shouldn't I… be the one… on top?"

"You'll get your turn," he assured her. He repositioned himself on her, pressed the left side of his face to hers, and held his weight on his forearms that he had just now placed on either side of her head. "Just… not now, Pep. Next time."

"That's… what you said… earlier today," she reminded him, her fingernails trailing the skin of his back. Before she could further argue her point, however, he physically reminded her why she always ended up trembling under him. It was just a prelude of it, she knew, but it did not mean that it was not as intense as the final act tended to be between them.

"Or whatever…" she said after she moaned so loudly she was not sure if it had been just her who had partially screamed. "Your birthday… your call…"

"Mmhhmm," he agreed with her and picked up the speed, not slowing it down even when he drowned her gratifying whimpers with his lips. This was how he had been thanking her for spending the day with him – her life with him, for being alive and together; or at least when they had not been taking breaks by eating, talking, or watching movies or T.V.

"Please, stop," she barely got out after another long period of wanted agony. Her head shifted to her right, her eyes closed, her hands rested on his moving shoulders, and her chest rose sky-high with the arching of her back. "I can't… anymore… please, Tony…"

"Are you sure?" he asked her, lost in his own bliss, but still aware enough to tend to her words and pleas. "Or is it like this morning… when you didn't mean it. And then you got mad at me… when I _did _stop."

"I'm sure… this time… I… I'm… sure… or not… I," she whimpered again and dug her fingernails in his shoulders. "Dammit, Tony! I don't… I don't know… _ah_!"

Tony chuckled lightly before he joined Pepper in another climatic bout of desire; this one greater than the previous had been. Had not been for his years of training and hero-like activities, he would have lost consciousness then and there. He was barely able to hold himself above her, even if his chest had ended up practically melted against hers, and he solemnly swore that if his skin was scorching just a tad more than what it currently felt like, he would have just suddenly combusted seconds ago.

"Pepper," he said between pants. "Are you… did you…"

"Yes," she said, her inhales no calmer than his. "You?"

He nodded twice, shakily pressed one final kiss to her lips, and then slowly rolled off her to rest on his back. Pepper took a moment to find composure as well, taking in deep breaths as needed, and once the room stopped spinning and her body was no longer quivering as much, she turned to her left side to face Tony, opened her eyes, and smiled.

"B plus," she whispered and lazily patted Tony's chest with her right hand. It took Tony a minute to make sense of her words, and once he understood what she had meant, he playfully narrowed his eyes at her.

"Bull_shit_!"

Pepper giggled at his response. She then pulled the covers to her chest, tapped her right cheek with her right index finger in a thought-considering gesture, and then sighed in an overly dramatic way.

"You're right. It _is_ bullshit. I meant to say: B minus."

"What?!" Tony asked, and if he was not as tired as he currently was, he would have jumped her again, on the spot, just to prove her wrong. "That was an A plus and you know it! Top 5% of the graduating class! With fucking honors, while you're at it!"

"_Fucking _honors?" Pepper asked in between giggles that soon turned to full out laughter. "Oh, my God!"

"What's so funny?" Tony asked and turned to his right to face her. His confusion made her laugh even harder, and it was not until he repeated the words in his mind and he realized the crude pun he had just unintentionally uttered, that he had no choice but to laugh as well.

"Oh, damn!" he slapped his forehead. "Didn't mean for it to come out the way it did."

That response only made her shriek even louder, to the point that her feet were now hitting the mattress, nonstop. Tony's head recoiled in utter confusion. He then stared at her a while longer until his eyes widened in understanding that he had done it again, and he began laughing again with her.

"Oh, crap," he hit his forehead multiple times. "That also didn't come out… I mean… finish… I mean… ugh! I'll just shut up now!"

"Oh, Tony! Please… please stop!"

"Again? I haven't even touched you yet, Pepper!"

This time, it was Pepper who covered her face in slight embarrassment at her words, but she was not able to stop her giggling fit. Slightly embarrassed as well, but also quite happy, the inventor slid closer to his redhead, making sure the covers now joined them rather than divided their locations on the bed. She had tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. Yet the moment she felt Tony's hands remove her own from her face, and when she witnessed the change in his gaze from a playful look to a serious stare, her laughter immediately stopped and her heart raced.

He brushed strands of her hair off her face and tucked them behind her ear. She closed her eyes when his fingers held onto the back of her neck, pulled her back slightly, and then felt his lips on hers. This kiss was not lacking passion or desire, but it did feel different than the one they had just shared minutes before. This kiss was more tender and emotional than the one given for the start or ending of a lovemaking session, and when his slightly parted lips whispered a question to her, she knew right away what this particular kiss had meant for him.

"Do you ever wonder, Pepper, what our lives would've been like if Whitney had never taken you away?"

She exhaled loudly, pressed her forehead against his chest, and threw her right arm around his waist. She took a moment to respond to a question she had considered herself in the past. When she felt brave enough to answer it, she opened her eyes once more, but only stared at his chest.

"I do. And I don't think we'd be here right now."

"At Stark Solutions?" he frowned.

"No," she lightly shook her head. "Together. Married. In bed."

"Mmhhh," he surrounded her waist with his arms, and rested his chin on her head. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's true," her soft voice replied. "You stayed with me because you felt responsible for Whitney taking out her jealousy on me. You then wanted me because Scott had me. Then you asked me to marry you because I was pregnant. And you didn't want me to leave you because this is all we've known for a long time. The two of us, together."

Tony remained quiet, internally reviewing her retort. He idly rubbed circles on her lower back with his right hand, which was pinned under her. With his left hand, he combed her slightly damped-with-drying-sweat short hair. She closed her eyes again, feeling soothed by his caresses, and just when she thought he was not going to make any type of response, he surprised her with one she did not expect.

"D minus."

"What?" she opened one eye to stare at his chest again.

"Your essay response," he said. "D minus."

"What? Essay response… are you… what you… _what_?"

"Your main idea is as weak as your supporting arguments, and your sources are questionable. So, D minus."

"Tony," she pushed herself away from his chest to stare at his face. "Did you just seriously, like, for real... _grade_ my answer?"

"You graded my performance just now. Why can't I grade your silly response?"

"Silly response?" she spat and almost removed herself from him had he not kept her in place, mere inches from his own body.

"Yes. Silly response. Either you don't give me enough credit or you don't know how important you are to me. How _beautiful_ you are to me. And at this point in our lives, that's just a slap to the face, Pep."

"Tony, don't… you… you _know_ it's true that we were just thrown together, by chance. We had no choice. I mean, yes, I'd loved you for a long time and all, but you didn't even like me like that until… until… Shit! I don't even know when, but it wasn't until I wasn't available anymore. That's for sure."

Tony scoffed. "Pepper, I've loved you way before that. I just… I didn't know what it was. Now I know, and I was an idiot for not asking you out sooner than I did."

"Sure you did," Pepper rolled her eyes. "That's why you went out with Whitney, and Maya, and who knows who else while you figured out what you wanted from me."

"Whitney doesn't count," he deadpanned. "She was my friend and I'd known her since we were little. I just… she just knew me… or I thought she did. And Maya, well, you know why I went out with her."

"Because I couldn't remember what we'd had together, and then because I was going out with Scott," Pepper replied, "Which proves my main idea that you wanted me only because someone else had me at the time. Just like it happened when I went out with Happy, or when I liked Gene."

"_Why_ are we fighting on my birthday?"

"Because _you_ asked a dumb question?"

"My question wasn't dumb. Your answer was."

"Was it, now?"

"Yes!"

"How do you figure? What makes my answer dumb?"

"It's wrong! That's why it's dumb!"

"It's not wrong!"

"It's crazy wrong!"

"It's not crazy! You're crazy!"

"Yeah! Crazy in love with you!"

"I…" Pepper began but immediately closed her mouth. It did not matter how many times he had told her the same words, how many ways he had shown her how strongly he felt for her, the confession of love always made her stomach flip and her voice crack. Remembering that Tony Stark loved her, that the genius inventor who was untouchable, unreachable, and sought after more than she dared to imagine, would do anything for her, for _her_ – a total nobody before he had come around – was always a sure way to shut her up.

"This… this is pointless," she finally said

"Yeah, it is," he agreed and, in a swift move, pinned her down on her back again. "Because I didn't stay with you because Whitney took you. I already _wanted _to be with you. And I didn't want you because Scott was going out with you. I wanted you because I couldn't imagine my life without you. And I didn't act on it at first, I kept my distance, because Gene showed me – made me _feel_ – what Whitney did to you, every part of it, and I couldn't bring myself to put you in the same danger as before."

"He… he did? You know what she did to me?"

"Yes. I had nightmares about it for weeks. Still do, sometimes," he swallowed hard, his blue orbs piercing her hazel ones. "And I didn't marry you because you were pregnant. I would've asked you to marry me anyway. And in case you forgot about it, even after you were supposed to marry Scott, I still went after you. I still looked for you on that roof, and I still followed you to your room. I consciously made love to you that night, Pepper, and not because I was hiding from Maya or because Scott had left you, but because you've always been the one I love. If… if it wasn't for you getting mad at me for messing around with your mind, you would've been the only woman I'd ever spent the night with."

"Tony," she closed her eyes when she felt a new wave of tears reach her, but this time not of laughter or embarrassment, but of guilt for doubting him again when she knew there was no need to reverse the advancement their relationship had. "Don't… don't say anything more. Please."

"No. I _have_ to, Pepper, because you have this stupid belief that I'm only here with you because I had no choice. Even after everything we've been through, you still doubt me, _us_. I didn't need a choice, Pepper. I didn't _want_ a choice. My choice has always been you."

"Tony…"

"Whitney knew it. Rhodey knew it. Ghost knew it. Even Obadiah, did! Everyone knew it before I did, Pepper. Everyone was able to see how I felt about you. I just… I just had to be shaken a little to realize it myself."

Pepper opened her eyes again, but was unable to say whatever had crossed her mind. The intense emotion that crossed his eyes overwhelmed her, his body over hers overcame her, and she could only continue to listen to what he had get off his chest.

"And," he continued, his voice lowering a tad. "And if you really love me, as much as you say you do, then please stop belittling what we have. Stop demeaning how I feel about you."

It took her a second, but she did nod quietly to him. His look of pain disappeared a little, and before he let go of the conversation he hoped would never again have to take place, he lowered his face to hers and kissed her slowly, tenderly, and stopped only when he could not breathe anymore.

"I love you, Pepper."

"And I," she sniffled but smiled. "Love you."

xxxXXXxxx

It was great to have his brother from another mother back, for good this time, and even though Pepper had insisted on letting the boys be boys, on their own, they had dragged her out to celebrate the reunion with them. After Rhodey's graduation ceremony, and after the party that had followed at the Stark Solutions penthouse, the trio was finally back together after many years of being apart. They had taken the night to be young and free: being both of these had led them to Pepper's favorite bar – the one Tony had bragged about to James Rhodes, many times before – to drink the night away. Happy had of course been invited to the bash, and in less time than it took to blink, he had accepted the invitation of the people he had grown to care for as more than just simple friends.

It was like old times again, like when Happy would visit Tony at the Rhodes' home to have him do his homework in exchange for doing weird chores for the inventor. He had not known it at the time, but the random little things Tony had asked of Happy to do had been crucial for Iron Man business, as insignificant as they had once seemed. It was not until now that Happy understood his role in the gold and red hero's crusade. It was not until recently that Happy Hogan realized how much Tony had actually trusted him without letting him know the small details of the jock's undercover missions he did not know were taking place.

None of them could ask for better company, for better friends, and even if life had set them apart for a while, they were all delighted to see that their ties were as strong as they had ever been.

"So, Rhodey's completely wasted," Happy said, beer in hand, as he continued telling Pepper the stories of the impromptu – and until recently – _secret _bachelor party they had thrown Tony before their wedding. Pepper had not even known that when Tony had left for a little while on the night they had announced their wedding intentions, that the three male friends had gone out to _"party the_ _single out of Tony Stark."_

"He can't tell which way is up," Hogan continued. "I mean, he's fucking _drunk_, Pepper. Never seen him _that _drunk!"

"I wasn't wasted!" Rhodey spat. "I couldn't be wasted! I had to drive your asses back home, remember?"

Tony scoffed and shook his head, his slightly lower inebriated state no better than Happy's or Rhodes's.

"As if, Rhodey! You _were _wasted… as hell!"

"I wasn't!" the new member of S.H.I.E.L.D. argued. "They're lying, Pepper. Couple of fucking liars, they are! If I'd been as wasted as you claim I was… how the hell did we even get home?"

"We took a cab, dumbass," Tony said and Pepper almost spat out her Margarita. "You wanted me to call Pepper to come pick us up, but I called a cab instead. You didn't even notice I took a fifty from your wallet to pay for the ride."

"You did?" Rhodey frowned but then chuckled. "Oh, well! That was _your_ fifty, Tony. I took it from your wallet before we left your house."

"Wah?" Tony asked and both Pepper and Happy threw their heads back in laughter. "Whatever, man," Tony said. "At least I didn't kiss a guy."

"What?" Pepper screeched, and even in their drunken state, the three men had to cover their ears to protect them from the redhead's alarmed voice. "You kissed a man, Rhodey? WHY?"

"Hey, hey, hey! Hey. Rhodey didn't kiss no guy," Happy said. "He made _out_ with him!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

Both Harold and Tony nodded in unison as they pointed at their embarrassed friend while Pepper covered her mouth in disbelief.

"Are you serious?" she asked, hands now against her cheeks. "How did that even happen?"

"Same reason why we took a cab home," Tony explained. "Rhodey was fucking drunk!"

"I wasn't… ugh!" Rhodey crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine! I _was_ drunk. And I DID make out with a guy… but I wasn't the only one who screwed up that night!"

"Oohh!" Pepper clapped, way too eager to hear more details about their wild night. "What do you mean? Who else made out with a guy?"

"Nobody," Tony said in between clenched teeth. "End of story, Pep."

"Oh-oh!" Happy snorted and winked at Pepper. "It's about to go down, Pepper!"

"What?" she stared back and forth between Tony and Rhodey, who sat across from each other in the small table; one to her left, and the other to her right. "What's about to go down?"

"You want to know who also fucked up that night, Pepper? Huh?" Rhodey asked, his eyes glaring at Tony's narrowed ones.

"Well, yeah!"

"No. She doesn't," Tony stated in a serious tone, which completely contradicted the lighthearted nature he had just used to mock Rhodey with. "She _doesn't_ want to know."

"Yeah, I do!" Pepper insisted and scoffed at Tony's warning face.

"Do you?" Rhodey asked again. "Do you, _really_?"

"No!" Tony said, this time louder than before, hoping it would dissipate Pepper's curiosity if he pretended to be mad, but it only made the redhead want to know that much more about what her husband had done the night of their wedding announcement.

"Yes, Rhodey!" she glared at Tony, letting him know with her eyes and tone that she was not going to let the issue go. "What _else_ happened that night? Did Tony cheat on me?"

"Well, it depends," Rhodey said and, for an instant, Pepper felt a pang of pain in her chest. Her eyes traveled from Rhodey to Tony, and she swallowed hard. But when Happy, who sat right across from her, waved his hand jokily at her with a wide smile, Pepper felt a little bit of her panic melt away on the spot.

"What he means, Pepper," Happy began, "Is that if you consider Tony getting a lap dance from a transvestite to be cheating, then yes, he did cheat on you… _a lot_."

Pepper's mouth hung and her eyes practically danced in delight and relief.

"Was he wearing a thong?"

"It was pink," Tony blurted out, but he then covered his mouth with both of his hands, making the entire situation that much more amusing to the ginger.

"Oh, _shit_, babe!" Pepper said, her palms hitting the table several times. "A guy shook his thing for you? And you let him?"

"I WAS DRUNK!"

"Oh, my God!" Pepper laughed as loud as she could, knowing very well that the sound of the live music playing behind her would drown out her non lady-like snorts and guffaws. "How drunk were you, baby?"

"As drunk as you were when you let that stripper spank you during your bachelorette party, Pepper," Happy replied before he realized what had come out of his mouth.

This time, all eyes were on Pepper, and all she could do was to guiltily shift her eyes from left to right.

"Uhm…"

"You, _what_? Pepper!"

Pepper flinched at hearing Tony's accusatory tone. But based on the situation, there was little she could do to make it better now. The cat was out of the bag, and all there was left to do was to let it drown in a bucket of ice.

"I didn't know, OK?" she said in an attempt to defend herself. "I didn't know the girls were going to show up at the house after you left! What was I supposed to do? Tell them to go home?"

"Girls, what girls?" Tony asked.

"Well, uhm, the girls, you know? The, ahem," she scratched the back of her neck a few times as she alternated between staring at the slowly ticking clock on the wall before her and avoiding Rhodey and Tony's questioning eyes. She then glared at Happy once to let him know how much trouble he was in, but the jock only shrugged in response.

"This ain't on me, Pepper. This is all you," Happy said, the umbrella of Pepper's Margarita in his mouth.

"Pepper?" Tony glared at her.

"OK, fine. So, I was going to go to sleep, I SWEAR! But then Trish called me and told she wanted to show me some ideas for the wedding. Since it wasn't_ that_ late, I told her to stop by. But it turned out that there were actually no wedding ideas and she wasn't alone."

"Trish?" Tony's tone of disbelief was almost funny to hear. "Trish set this up?"

"No! Of course not!" Pepper said, her hands waving in front of her chest. "At least not alone. Bambi and Diane showed up, too. But they didn't say anything to me right away. And then, about fifteen minutes after they'd gotten there, someone knocked on the front door."

"Of the penthouse?" Rhodey asked the question that had taken too long to come out of Tony's mouth. "Someone made it to the front door of the penthouse?"

"Yeah. It confused me, too," Pepper admitted. "Especially when I heard that it was the police."

"The… police?"

"Yeah. I thought... I thought something had happened to you, alright?" she pointed to Tony. "So I ran to the door, opened it and…"

"And… _what_?" Tony asked.

"And there was a guy at the door, dressed in a cop outfit… or what I thought was a cop outfit. But then I saw the leather chaps… and the furry handcuffs. And I then I knew that he really wasn't a cop."

"Why didn't you close the door? Or asked him to leave!"

"I couldn't!" Pepper argued. "He was already inside... and we'd been drinking, a _lot_… and he was… a guest…"

"Of who? Yours?" Tony spat.

"NO! Of course not!" Pepper replied before she stared to her right. "Of-of Roberta's…"

"WHAT?" Rhodey choked on his drink.

"Your _mom_ brought my _wife_ a _stripper_?" Tony asked Rhodey, a finger pointing towards him, but Rhodey just shook his head in disbelief. "To MY house?"

"How is my mom associated with a stripper?"

"They used to work together," Pepper replied before she realized what she had said and flinched. "I mean, not that your mom was a stripper… just… from back in the day, you know, when she, uhm… like… had her video-making days…"

"Pepper, are you serious?" Tony inquired. "You let a stripper spank you? How could you let a man, other than me, spank your ass? I _earned_ that ass!"

"That was the game, Tony!"

"Game? You call that a game? What kind of fucked up game is that?"

"A better one than the one where she put a rolled up one-hundred dollar bill in his G-string with her mouth."

"WHAT?" Tony leaned towards her. "PEPPER! You told me that was your first time when you did that to me!"

"Hold up!" Rhodey said, hands in the air. "Did you put on a G-string for Pepper, Tony?"

"Why the fuck would I not?" Tony replied. "She's my wife! I do whatever pleases her so!"

"Oh, TMI!" Rhodey covered his ears with his hands. "T.M.I."

"And you," Tony pointed at Happy. "How do you even _know_ that?"

"About you wearing a G-string?" Happy began. "I didn't know that part."

"About my party, Happy!" Pepper continued. "How did you even know about the party the girls threw for me?"

"Oh, Trish told me about it before it happened. And the details the very next day. I even bet her $50 bucks that you'd go for it and let the stripper spank your ass."

"WHAT?" Pepper's hands flew to her head. "Is that why you took Tony with you? So that, Langley, the stripper could show up?"

"You go by first name with him now?" Tony asked. "Why would you do that to me, Pepper? You told me I was the first one!"

"You let a man shake his junk for you!" Pepper reminded him. "Behind my back!"

"He let a guy make out with him!" Tony pointed to Rhodey.

"And he bet that your wife would let herself be spanked!" Rhodey said of Happy.

"Why would you all do that?" Happy asked.

"I WAS DRUNK!" the trio replied, all at the same time.

The foursome then silently stared at one another, lowered their gazes to their laps, and when their eyes returned to face each other once more, laughter erupted from all of them. The small laughs turned into loud screeches, and soon everyone was staring at the group. It took them a few minutes to compose themselves, but once they did, all was forgotten between them, just like that.

"Oh, man," Pepper said, wiping tears from her face. "That's all I can do for the night. I'm going home."

"What, no, Pepper!" Tony said. "It's only midnight!"

"I know, Tony," she patted his hand. "But I'm sooo tired. Why don't you stay with the guys? I need my beauty nap."

"Aw, Pepper!" Happy whined. "We still haven't gone_ karaoking_! The night's still young!"

"I know, Happy, but I'm not," she gave him an apologetic smile. "Next time, alright? I promise I won't feel old next time we go out."

"I'm the old one, Pep," Rhodey reminded her and she scoffed. "You can't take that from me, now."

"Oh, Rhodey!" Pepper said and stood up from her chair to give her friend a hug. "You're still the grumpy one of the bunch."

"Ha-ha," Rhodey said but still leaned over to give Pepper a kiss on her cheek. "Go. I'll make sure your husband doesn't get more manly junk waved at him."

"Hey!" Tony said as he too stood up and pulled Pepper from Rhodey's grip. "I can stop myself from junk-waving business, thank you very much. You just worry about making sure the girl you kiss tonight is really a girl, alright?"

"Ass," Rhodey said with a smile.

"That's what Langley spanked," Happy mumbled before everyone glared at him. "OK, it's official," Happy said after he repeated his own words to himself. "I'm fucking drunk."

Rhodey, Pepper and Tony all shook their heads at the new Iron Man, and Happy just shrugged again. Tony then let his two friends know he would be right back, held Pepper's hand in his, and walked his wife to the exit.

The music was barely muffled behind the closed front door of the bar, but it was enough for the couple to have a moment of peace alone together. Tony held her waist, and Pepper rested her hands on his chest, both smiling at each other like lunatics in love. He did not care that some bystanders had begun to recognize them and were starting to point and stare, and he really did not care that they took pictures of them when he leaned down and pressed a long, passionate kiss to Pepper's lips.

Pepper's hands slid up his chest and surrounded his neck. When the teasing and cat-calling turned too loud for their taste, the twosome pulled away from each other to wave at the small crowd that was waiting to be let inside the bar.

"Alright, alright," a tipsy Tony told the bystanders. "We'll get a room!"

The comment was welcomed with snickering from the viewers; yet, when Tony walked her to their vehicle and handed Pepper the key, the witnesses knew it was now time to really leave them alone. Pepper was too drunk to drive herself, but thanks to the self-driving Stark vehicle, she did not have to worry about that. Tony was just _that_ much prouder of himself for coming up with an automobile that would serve his beloved wife.

"Text me when you get home, Pep," Tony asked of her while he towered over her form as she sat in the driver's seat of the Stark-B411. "I'll only be gone a couple of hours, tops. I'm kinda tired, too."

"Take your time, Tony," Pepper said with a tilt of her head. "You haven't been able to really hang out with Rhodey in forever. Take as much time as you need."

"There's always tomorrow," he stroked her cheek with his right thumb. "And the next day, and next weekend, and next month. I'll be back home in two hours. I promise."

"OK, Tony," she kissed the inside of his wrist. "I'll be waiting."

"Want me to arrive in a cop outfit?"

"TONY!"

"Just saying!" he chuckled. "Just trying to please my woman!"

"Oh, stop it," she said, partly embarrassed, but also partly aroused by the idea of Tony wearing the outfit the stripper had worn. "Or I'll make you do it when you get home."

"Wouldn't be the worst thing," he replied. His boyish charm and smile earned him a loud laugh from his wife.

xxxXXXxxx

She felt the disturbance in the air as soon as she walked inside the penthouse, but thanks to Gene's intense meditation training, she was able to pretend she did not know it was there, watching her from afar, perhaps even from the balcony doors. She casually locked the door behind herself, set the lockdown mode that only Tony could remove, and dropped her purse on the couch in the living room.

Trying to keep a straight face and a relaxed gait, she walked around the penthouse, picking up whatever insignificant items she found out of place. She slowly cleaned up her home, all the while she used Gene's techniques to try to pinpoint where the disturbance was coming from. She went into the old nursery room, the lab, the gym, the home office, and even some of the guest rooms. When she finally made it to her bedroom after pretending to clean up the dwelling, she realized that the presence was mere feet away from her.

Perhaps even breathing down her neck.

She could not see it or hear it, but the sensation of someone standing behind her sent goosebumps crawling from her neck to her toes. Whatever or whoever it was that currently stood near her, was nothing but clever as hell, as none of the security cameras – including the highly-advanced infrared and x-ray vision ones – were picking up the intruder in the home. Whatever technique was being used to hide from the high-tech security systems of the penthouse should have prompted her to call for backup – for help – to call for her husband to provide aid.

_No_, she thought almost immediately. _I can't bring him back. He has no protection from it, at all._

And he could not get in trouble with the law or with S.H.I.E.L.D. His _life _depended on it.

Her mind went back to the night she had found her husband on the floor, surrounding their son, protecting him from whatever unknown force had scared Tony Stark shitless – perhaps the same force that was now haunting her. Perhaps the same force that had once before already haunted her.

She felt her throat clench and her muscles stiffen, but all she could do now was endure. Tony, Rhodey, and Happy were too far away to help her. Gene was the only one that could be here in a second, but to summon him, she would have to give out the fact that she knew she was being watched. She could not call anyone. She could not call unwanted attention to herself. She had to face this enemy by herself if she wanted to find out who it truly was that was trying to get rid of them.

Was it Fury? Was it S.H.I.E.L.D.? Was it the WSC? Who had the balls to attack Rescue on her turf? Who had the bounty initiator sent her way this time? Were her theories correct? Was she the next one in line to be executed? Dealt with? Murdered in her own home?

Was the fact that this was the first time she felt the presence, a sure indicator that the intruder had not been around in a long time? Not since Tony had seen it the night of terror he and their child had undergone, and then stalking her outside the shower a week after that? Or was the presence making itself known just to terrify her enough to leave her defenses down? Was it toying with her?

She took out her pod from the back pocket of her jeans and noted that Tony still had over an hour left of the two-hour range he had given her. She made sure to text him her arrival to their home, just as she had promised she would. Once the message had been replied with a heart symbol, Pepper smiled, turned off the sound of the device, and left it on the nightstand. She then stretched her arms above her head, groaned loudly with the effort, and then spoke in a soft voice.

"I need a shower."

Her clothes and hair smelt of cigarette smoke and alcoholic drinks, giving her the perfect excuse to carry out the plan that had just sprouted in her mind. She knew she needed the shower anyway, but it was almost suicidal to do so with an invisible threat standing behind her. Nevertheless, she also knew she had no choice. Tony and her were people of data, and without data, it was going to be difficult to make any headway on finding out who was trying to off them for good. Recon was her job, anyway. It was only fair that she took one for the team.

She took measured steps towards the bathroom, shedding her clothes one by one as she went. Her blouse came off first, then her undershirt. Her belt followed and with it came her jeans and sneakers, and by the time she arrived at the hamper located inside the master bathroom, the redhead was in nothing more than her undergarments and socks. She deposited her clothes with the rest of the dirty laundry and, seconds after that, she was completely naked and facing the large full-body mirror in the room.

She stared her bare body up and down a few times, noting every single scar she carried on herself, completely ignoring for a brief instant that she could still feel the presence near her. She began her scrutiny with the small mark on her neck; the one Ghost had given her, and the thought of the times Tony had tried erasing that despised mark with his lips and tongue made her toes curl.

Her gaze then fell to her stomach to witness the scars she had earned when the force field of the armor had failed her during her hiatus as Rescue, and an AIM beekeeper had sent a laser her way while she had been trying to protect an unconscious Maya Hansen. These scars were a tad larger than the one on her neck, but thanks to Gene's Chinese herbal medicine, they were a lot smaller than they should have been. These scars had received special attention from the inventor as well. In fact, now that she thought about it, all of her scars did.

She could list every single situation that had earned her a mark on her body, including the ones she had developed during her pregnancy, and she could do so with her eyes closed. The intimately-placed pregnancy scars and the stretch marks on her thighs and belly, she did not mind at all; they were comforting reminders of the life she had once carried in her womb – a life that had been taken away, too soon.

Tony also had his share of scars on his body, and whenever the redhead saw them or felt them, she fell in love with the inventor all over again. For her, her scars reflected the times she had cheated death. For Tony, his scars reflected not only this, but the times he had risked his life for her. The blue-eyed boy's scars had a more intricate story to tell, one that included the sacrifices he had made in the name of his love for her, his family, his friends – and sometimes even for his enemies.

Pepper exhaled slowly and long as she gathered the final strength she needed to carry out her plan. She half turned in place to head to the shower stall, casually brushed the tips of her fingers against the set of bracelets she now always wore around her wrists – one purple and one silver – and then walked inside the shower booth. She slid the glass door closed and waited for the sensors in the stall to recognize her presence. A second later, the shower turned on, spraying her body with the water at the temperature she always liked it to be: extremely hot.

She closed her eyes and let the scalding water relax her muscles by giving her back to the stream, allowing her to concentrate even deeper on reading the status of the presence that was yet to leave the bathroom. She could not tell if it was moving or not, but she could feel it intensify its influence in the atmosphere in the room. She swallowed hard, suddenly nervous that her efforts would be in vain, and that Tony would come home to find her dead. In the end, she realized that there was no turning back from the path she had started herself on. If she was unlucky: they killed her now or they killed her later. If she was successful: she figured out information about the intruder and she killed _them_ instead.

_What if there's more than just one?_ _Oh, crap! What if there's more right now?_

It was too late to dwell on that – on anything that she could not change – so she decided to just go with the flow. Act as the water that was currently massaging her body, and let the rest work itself out on its own.

When she opened her eyes again, a thick cloud of steam covered the entire room; just as it had been the case the day she had seen the figure standing behind the closed door. Tony had suggested they replaced the sliding doors with tinted ones, but Pepper had refused to go along with his idea. If something was going to attack her while in the shower, she wanted to be able to see it coming a mile away.

Her gaze lifted and she scanned her surroundings, taking in every single detail of them. She inhaled and exhaled as naturally as possible, ran her fingers down her hair to make sure she at least looked as if she was waiting for the water to soak her mane before starting the cleansing, and just as she was about to lean over to reach the rack to grab her sponge and body wash, from the corner of her left eye she saw a familiar scene.

Just as the time before, the silhouette stood in the middle of the room: too far away to really worry the untrained eye, but close enough to catch someone's brief attention. She had to wonder if the intruder knew that she could sense it – see it, even, because it had done the same last time it had been here. None of the cameras had picked up its presence, but the steam somehow allowed her to see it standing near the shower stall door as blurry as it could be. How was it possible that the cameras did not pick up the images, but the simple steam let her see through the disguise?

Maybe the technology was not as advanced as she had thought it to be; or maybe the stranger in her home knew how to cheat the cameras to its advantage.

_It_, the redhead thought and a shiver ran down her spine. _I don't even know if it's a he or a she!_

And she could not just assume it was male. Female enemies were after her, too. She could not immediately think of any of their names at the moment – and she was sure that Whitney was no longer seeking revenge of any kind. But being the wife of the smartest and richest young man in the world inevitably came with the lifelong sentence of being targeted by angry mobs of girls.

_It's like we're still at the Academy! Tony being chased by girls, and me having to deal with their stupid pranks!_

Was this a prank?

Based on the small frequency of the presence's appearance in the home, and the fact that it had just cut half the distance between where it had been a second ago and the shower door, Pepper could not say with certainty that it was a prank. There were no hidden strings or light effects in the room. There was no notice of a break-in, and the penthouse did not show signs of tampering. But above all, the sound of feet on the tiled floor was inevitable, and yet this image was getting closer to her by making no noise at all. Maybe it was hallucinations, maybe it was magic, but a prank it definitely could not be.

She finished lathering her body with the liquid soap and then started rinsing. She rubbed her hands down her body to hurry up the cleaning process, and once her eyes moved from staring at her now cleaned legs to staring at the wall in front of her, she could tell from her left peripheral vision that the presence was standing right outside the door.

As opposed to last time, however, she neither call anyone's name nor did she scream. She refused to acknowledge it, or even make any indication that she was aware of its presence. In turn, the figure became braver, bolder, and within a second of her pretending to reach for the bottle of shampoo, the lock on the sliding door began to jingle – a lock that could only be removed from inside the shower stall.

Before the intruder fully unlocked the glass door, before it could have the upper hand by caging her inside the enclosure, Pepper surprised it with an attack of her own.

She flicked her wrists in a very specific way and, a blink of an eye later, an armored gauntlet appeared from a hidden compartment inside the shower stall. The gauntlet surrounded her right hand before she aimed it at the figure. Not caring about the explosion of glass or the effect it would have on her nude body, she blasted the figure through the transparent doors.

The shards of glass did not deter her. With angry eyes, she stared at the figure, even if all she could see was darkness partly covered by the steam around them.

"Who are you?" Pepper spat with ire as another piece of the Rescue suit surrounded her left foot, giving her half a chance to propel herself in the air to watch the figure slowly recover from the blast that had hit it, square in the middle – what she could only assume had been its chest.

"What do you want? Who sent you here?"

She followed the questions with two more blasts that the figure barely evaded. As the chest piece attached to her body, she let a good chunk of the armor's energy level hit the intruder with a ray of the unibeam.

The explosions caused the alarms and sprinklers to go off, the penthouse to go into full defense mode, and the rest of the armored suits to be deployed from the Makluan Temple. She knew that these actions would ping Tony's phone in ten seconds, so she did what she knew she had to do: she screamed at the top of her lungs, whilst she continued to attack the figure before her, for the security systems to disable all outgoing communications with non-local Stark devices until further notice.

The system had no option but to comply; she was now locked inside the home with the shadowy figure, with nothing more to protect her but her quick wit, her rage, and the still-assembling Rescue armor.

The suit continued to attach itself to her as she moved about and out of the bathroom. The pieces were coming in no particular order; they followed her as they could to the master bedroom. The moment she watched the room's double doors exploding, she knew that the thing was able to fight back. Happy had been wrong. This was no ghost, no demon, or Tony high on booze. The intruder, it was real, and it was now her against it – kill or be killed.

The armor could be broken down into several awkward-looking parts, but all she cared about was having the portions with firepower on them. The figure suddenly disappeared from the bedroom, trying to make its escape. However, at this point, it could not fool the ginger – not when Gene's training had awoken in her the ability to feel the unseen.

"Get back here, you son of a bitch!"

The figure responded by somehow lifting all of the furniture in the living room – at the same time – and throwing it her way. Had it not been for the five thrusters she now had on each of her appendages and back, she would have not been able to avoid them as swiftly as she did.

"There's nowhere to go!" the redhead yelled behind her now covered face, her voice immediately disguised by the modulator. The pieces of the suit were cold against her wet skin, but she did not let the uncomfortable feeling of ice sliding down her pores stop her from chasing the figure. She moved her head from side to side as she stood in the middle of the trashed living room, trying to pinpoint the current position of the spectral figure, but it was all to no avail. Her radars showed nothing was nearby. When she connected the security feeds of the home to the helmet's HUB, she realized that the figure was once more hiding behind the cloaking tech it had with it.

_Not this shit again_, she told herself as she took a gamble and closed her eyes to try to narrow down the location of the attacker. _I can't let it get away!_

Just as Gene had instructed her, she focused all of her energy into one thought – the one thought that had driven her to learn the manner in which she could feel someone's presence in a room: the thought of her son still being alive, as impossible as it always seemed to be. She took in deep breaths, tightened her shut eyes, and when she felt the presence again, very close to her, she opened her eyes only to see its fist punching her faceplate.

She flew through the air, hit the sealed balcony doors, and shattered them on contact. Thanks to the outer metal coverings that had been activated when the internal alarms had gone off, the heroine did not have to worry about flying off the balcony and hitting a building nearby. What did she have to worry about, though, and only for a second, was the pain she felt when her back hit the thick metal curtains on which she had left a Rescue-shaped indention.

_Fuck!_ She breathed through the pain, ignored the need to check for injuries, and carried on.

She only had enough time to shake her head into its senses before another punch headed her way. This time, instead of connecting with her head, it connected with her left forearm. She then redirected the hit to the side so that she could use her leg to knee the figure in what she hoped was the stomach. When the figure stumbled back, Pepper knew she had hit something, but her victory was short-lived.

All of a sudden, she was upside down, lifted by her right armored foot by the figure. She screamed. She thrashed. She deployed flares and the thrusters. She told the figure what she would do once she was able to set herself free, but it was all in vain. Before the last set of colorful words left her mouth, before she could think of a way out, and before the indicator that the Hulk Buster was within range of the Stark Solutions penthouse, she felt the wind being knocked out of her once more, but this time by the knee of the figure impacting with her back. If it had not been for the suit of armor, if it had not been for the army of suits breaking inside the penthouse, Pepper Potts would have at least become paraplegic there and then.

The last thing she remembered after the figure left was her vital stats decreasing, and the last words she spoke were a command to call Tony Stark.

xxxXXXxxx

_ Whitney was beyond herself, running out of ideas and angry as hell. Everything she had planned, everything she had thought about and had carefully executed was yet to yield the wanted result: killing Pepper Potts._

_ The bruises and scratches had already begun healing. The missing fingernails were starting to grow back. The contaminated water and the poisoned and/or rotten food were yet to ravage her insides, or even make a hole in her intestines or stomach. The psychological abuse had only gotten a few pleas from the ginger, but not once had she denied what she felt for Tony Stark._

_ Not once had she denied that, in the end, it would be her who owned his heart._

_ And now Madame Masque was tired of waiting. Tired of searching for ideas to continue a torture that no longer interested her; a torture that was not breaking the redhead's inner strength and pride. Save for sexual abuse – which Whitney, for some reason, had never been willing to administer – she had employed onto Pepper any horrendous torment technique that had crossed her mind. Yet the girl continued to wait, continued to withstand. She continued to claim that Tony Stark would save her life._

_ "Fool," Whitney Stane said as she dumped the last resort to kill the redhead onto the water and food she was going to leave her with. Dying of asphyxiation inside an old submarine in the middle of the South Pole, with an infection, little food and water, and multiple broken bones would just HAVE to be the way Pepper Potts had to die. There was no other way – no other method save from shooting her between the eyes, that Whitney would feel satisfied that the redhead had suffered until her last breath._

_ "This is it." _

_Whitney chuckled at the same time she mixed in the Taipan snake venom into the only food and water she would leave Pepper with. The human body was supposed to last at most seven days without any food or water, and Pepper had one of two choices to make once she was dumped into the frigid waters of the Pole: starve herself to death while waiting for the oxygen to run out in the submarine, or poison herself with the tainted food. Either option was fine for the blonde. All she wanted was for the end to come at last._

_Once the venom was completely embedded into the comestibles, Whitney took a step back and a moment to admire the cleverness of her plan. Tony was yet to find out that anything was out of place – no one suspected what had been of the spunky girl, and Whitney was confident that the venom she had chosen, not only for its potency but for its ironic initials of T.S., would finally allow her to let Tony find out what she had done; what he had allowed to happen._

"_I'll pay a visit to Tony once I'm done here. I'll let him know what his Pet has become: worm food."_

_Smiling to herself and feeling as powerful as ever, Whitney Stane packed up everything she needed to finalize her cruel plans. She dumped all of the tools into a backpack, zipped it up, slung it on her back, and then almost skipped her way out of the room and into the cell where Pepper was being kept. Very soon – all too soon for her victim – Whitney would stand before a dead redhead, soul and unblinking eyes lost to the world, while every crevice of her body leaked her blood._

_And it would not be until later, much later, when Tony smoked her out, that Whitney would realize that Pepper was a lot tougher than she had originally thought._

* * *

**A/N:** I'm not sure what to say here, other than tomorrow is my birthday! YAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! *cough*

Oh, and Pepper is fine… she is… really… she… uhm… Well, at least it wasn't Kidnap Pepper Month! It was Tony's birthday! And… Beat the Crud Out of Pepper Day… Yeah, ahem, review? Yeah, review!


	7. Chapter 6

**Guest Review Responses**

**Guest: Finally. It feels like the edge. It's getting far too interesting now. Please keep it up. We are waiting to see just how complicated this one is. Thanks. oh and sorry i BIRTHDAY!** – Complicated doesn't begin to describe it… until the end… lol… And thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a blast! :)

**Someone: OH COOL! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :D OH MY GOD! WHO WAS IT THAT BROKE INTO THE PENTHOUSE?! UGH...I need to know.. ****Ok...so practically everyone who guessed what happens in May was wrong... LOL! You know, I was just thinking, imagine if the person who wants them dead is Gene...he could be acting his niceness...I really doubt it, but you never know...you always surprise me! If it is Gene, then that just brings a whole lot of new questions into my mind! Pretty sure it's Fury though... This chapter was Awesome - as always! (The Pepperony was awesome too!) I loved the bit where they were all hanging out, that was hilarious! Anyway...HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY! :D** – LOL! Yeah! I kinda sorta gave Pepper a break and let her and Tony have their little moment together. Was that hot or what? Gene, huh? Interesting idea… I guess he could be involved… or maybe he isn't… or maybe he's Snape… or maybe I need to stop drinking so much coffee when I write these things :P

**apps: A very happy birthday to you...God bless you dear with wonderful ideas to write more about pepperony!...Speaking about chappie superrrr hottieeee...loved it...no matter what please keep them together and alive... njoyyyy – **Thank you very much! It was a very happy birthday filled with food, relaxation, laziness and Big Bang Theory. SHAMY and Pepperony, FTW!

**Muah: I had exams so I didnt catch this one in time. I am also too late for your birthday! But I wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY anyway! This was so sweet and fluffy and also hilarious...but just for the first half. And then you just had to make things angsty again. *sigh* you will never learn. ;P **– Thank you! Here's the update! I had it ready last night, but I passed out before my beta finished reviewing it. But here it is, and I'm already working on the next chappie! Warning: angst is all there will be from now on, although thankfully, not Pepperony angst.

* * *

**Chapter 6: June**

_The last thing she had seen had been the eyes of Whitney Stane as she told her something she could not remember. Her body had been shutting down for some reason and, for the life of her – quite literally – she had not been able to understand what Whitney had said. Her hearing had been impaired, and her vision had been blurry as well, so even if she had wanted to suddenly develop the ability to read lips, her eyes would have not let her do so. And that was not even counting her failing body and brain!_

_ Yet, now she felt a little bit better, although she was not entirely recovered. In fact, she was probably only 25% recovered, if she wanted to assign a value to it, but it was enough to realize the opportunity she now had. Whitney was yet to show her face again, and after a few days of waiting and examining where she was, Pepper realized that Whitney would never return once more unless she went through the trouble of swimming down several hundred feet in the frigid cold waters of the South Pole. Pepper also now knew for a fact that the blonde had given her up for dead – an incorrect rationale that would hopefully work to the redhead's advantage. Or so she prayed it did._

_ Pepper weakly smiled at her luck. The blonde had probably left the redhead, thinking that the large, old, rusted submarine was going to become her underwater coffin, but Pepper saw it for what it truly was: a final chance to call for help, to save herself if all else failed – a way to survive what no human being should ever have to go through in their lives. _

_For the first time in her life, Pepper felt grateful for all those boring, science-related talks she had with Tony Stark._

xxxXXXxxx

He wiped his brow of sweat with his left hand, and then said hand from oil and grease on his jeans. It had been a long time since Tony had been able, willing, and inspired enough to build something new: this appeared to be the perfect time to let himself go. There was no special occasion for it either, and he really did not have the financial need to be designing anything new at this point – his company was more than well-equipped with inventions for years to come – but he could not stop the ideas that came to his mind. They demanded to be turned into reality and, the more he thought about it, putting his gifts to good use would not only benefit the masses, but his favorite redhead as well.

_I promised her a faster suit_. _I __**will**__ give her a faster suit._

Once the shock of finding her still body lying on the floor of their destroyed former home had dissipated, he had turned on the hero mode he was yet to turn off since that night, three weeks ago. That night, he had learned that he did not need a suit of armor to be Iron Man. Even if Happy was the one who got to keep the streets safe within the suit, in the end, Tony Stark would always be the true hero behind the gold and red armor. It was not as if he did not believe that Happy was a good fit for the armor, but Tony had come to realize that he was much more than just a high-tech suit. His ability to keep his loved ones safe while saving the world did not originate from having his armor – it came from his heart.

He had finally come to the realization that he did more harm to Pepper if he only treated her like a wife in these situations, rather than treating her as his equal in the field of action. Pepper had had her own brushes with death for many years, and she had also experienced the side-effects of having a hero persona. He owed it to her to treat her as such; even if it hurt him to see her struggle to recover from the attack she received at the penthouse. Even if she still had to rely on the _Pep Ride_ sometimes to move around when her legs and back were too tired to hold her, he would not cushion the blow. He would no longer treat her as if she were a porcelain doll – a damsel in distress, because if there was something she had proven to him all these years, it was that she had been everything but the idle participant in the fight against whatever had threatened them at some point or other in their lives.

She could not do it all alone and neither could he. And he now knew, more than ever, that they were a team, the four of them – including Happy and Rhodey – and that if they were going to track and bring to justice whoever had killed their son and had been trying to kill them off for years, they would have to do so together: as the family they had become. He could still flinch in emotional pain when Pepper held back a moan of agony when she slowly dressed herself in the mornings, but he would not think of her as more delicate than he. He could still get mad at Happy for unnecessarily scratching the armor, but he would not lecture him on the importance of taking care of the suit. And he could still roll his eyes at Rhodey's goody-two-shoes antics, but he would seriously consider Rhodey's experience and point of view.

The attack that Pepper had suffered – _handled, _he had to correct himself – that one night, weeks ago, had opened Tony's eyes to many realities he had wanted to ignore. Pepper was not a victim of Whitney's crazy vengeance, Ghost's blackmailing antics, the Maggia's underground criminal empire techniques, or of whoever had tried to intimidate her in their home. Pepper was a survivor – a fighter, and despite the initial scare and fear that this time she had taken on too much on her own, he was proud of what she had done. She had single-handedly proven to the intruder in their home that if he was going to try to end her life, he would have to fight to the teeth to get it done. Pepper Potts was not going down without a fight. And neither would Tony Stark.

He sighed in accomplished relief when he tightened the last bolt on his newest invention. He had spent longer than he had expected on the fine tuning of the new version of the engine of the _Earth Movers_, but it was worth the while. This new mechanism would significantly reduce the amount of energy used by the digging machines, which were currently solar-powered, and it would allow for the excavations to be even greener than they already were. He had also replaced their core with a modified arc reactor power supply – the same one he had just recently created for the _Stark Bike_. With it, the _Earth Movers_ were going to become 300% more efficient than before.

His back was demanding relief. It popped loudly when he stood straight to stretch his limbs. He moved his head left and right to crack the bones of his neck, and then finally stood up from the chair to hear the rest of his body adjust. He threw the tools he had in his hand on the work desk, and after turning off the prototype engine, he snapped his fingers twice to place the machines in the lab on standby. He then made his way to the exit, let the hissing sound of the closing reinforced door tell him the lab of the Stark Mansion was locked, and almost ran down the hall, towards his old room.

He had half-expected Pepper to still be lying on the couch of the sitting area of his childhood bedroom, but he was quick to see that only the television remained on. His wife was nowhere to be seen in the common area of the bedroom, so he figured that she was probably with Jarvis, in the kitchen, chitchatting while making food. He was not going to deny that he was starving. As soon as he took a quick shower to wash away the result of spending hours locked up in the lab, he would rush downstairs to join the duo in the dining room.

Jarvis had been a lifesaver when Tony had been growing up, and he was still a lifesaver today. He had been there even when Pepper had needed his help after returning from the hospital when she did not remember who she was. In every capacity possible, the butler had been there to aid them both, no questions asked. Sometimes, Tony felt guilty for making Jarvis relocate the place he called home so many times for the sake of the billionaire's comfort. Yet, many times, the man had reminded Tony that he lived to serve him and his family, wherever he or Pepper were. Even if that location was away from his executive assistant, Bambi Arbogast (who Tony still could not believe had captured the eye of Edwin Jarvis, on day one), Jarvis had been happy to join the couple for a few weeks at the mansion while the redhead recovered from her injuries, away from civilization and the worries of the world.

Then again, Tony was not one to talk. Pepper had captured his eye on day one as well, even before he had understood what he was getting himself into by letting the ginger hang around with him. He had just mistakenly thought that Jarvis was beyond building a romantic relationship at his age, but Tony also had to admit that his own father and father-in-law had proven him wrong. It was never too late to fall in love, and it was never too soon to start over again.

With this thought in mind, and desperately wanting to be near his wife, Tony ran inside the bedroom, walked straight to the bathroom, and then began taking off his clothes. He did not even bother to aim them as he threw them towards the hamper, knowing he would pick them up when he got out. He turned on the shower and waited for the water to not be cold anymore. He patted his right foot on the floor, scratched the back of his neck, and ran his fingers through his hair until a voice behind him made him shriek in surprise.

"You need a haircut, Tony," Pepper said, eyes on the back of his bare (yet incredibly familiar to her) body, a relaxed smile on her face as she soaked in the bubble-filled bathtub behind him. "Do you want me to get Matilda to come over? She can be here this afternoon."

"How long have you been here?" Tony asked, his left hand still on his fast beating heart. "I didn't see you there."

"About twenty minutes. I thought you'd be working until tonight," her eyes closing to let her body concentrate on receiving the pain-relieving properties of the bath salts she was using for her aching back and legs. "Calling it quits for now or for the rest of the day?"

"Rest of the day," he retorted, walked inside the standing shower stall, and got under the stream. He used the water to remove some of the grime he had accumulated during the morning before he began using the soap to actually wash it off more thoroughly.

"I just want to crash until tomorrow."

"I'm calling Matilda, then," Pepper said. "Have her come by after lunch."

"OK," Tony replied after spitting out soapy water from his mouth. "Have you had lunch already?"

"Nope."

"I'm starving. What's cooking?"

"Nothing."

"What?!" the inventor stopped lathering his hair, slid open the glass door of the shower enclosure, and then all but gawked at his wife. "There's no food?"

"Nope. At least not yet," Pepper repeated. "I forced Jarvis to leave so that he could have lunch with Bambi while she's at work. They haven't seen each other in days."

"Oh," Tony was taken aback by the response, yet he closed the door either way. "OK. I hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right."

"Besides," Pepper began saying as she slowly helped her body get ready to stand up to get out of the tub. "I want to get out of here, too. I need to get some sun."

"So, you wanna eat out?"

"Yeah. That OK? You don't have to come if you don't want to," she said as she finally stepped out of the tub and began rinsing it and draining it. "I know you said you wanted to crash. I can bring us something back."

"No, it's OK. I just… I didn't think you'd wanted to go anywhere yet. Aren't you in pain?"

"A little," she admitted while she walked towards the shower stall, slid the door open, and jumped inside to wash off the remnants of her bath. Tony had just finished showering himself, so he just rested the right side of his body against the wall, watching as the redhead cleansed herself and continued her response.

"But not enough to keep watching the _Breakdancing with Celebrities_ marathon. I need a break of having a break."

Tony chuckled and nodded to her. "I get ya. Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know," Pepper shrugged. "I don't care, honestly. What I really care about, though, is being able to… well… I…" she swallowed hard. "Could we… uhm, I… I'd like to go see Jimmy today. I haven't seen him in months."

Tony gulped at hearing her words, but he silently nodded to agree with her. It _had_ been a while since they had visited James's grave, mostly because it was painful to do so, and they had not even gone to see him on his birthday. It was overdue for them to get over their aching hearts enough to go see their son – something they had not done together since they had left him there.

"We can," he said. "We should. In fact…" his gaze became distant for a second before he continued his response. "If we're heading that way, I know where we can stop to grab a bite."

Pepper finished washing off her hair, looked up to stare at her husband, and then gave him a sad smile when she figured out the location he was referring to. It had been at least a couple of years since they had last gone there – to the place Tony had all but carried her to when she was still unable to walk due to the cast on her leg. But it was one of their special places to go; one of the very few where they could be themselves and be treated as nothing more than normal people with normal lives.

"Haircut after that?" she asked, walked closer to him, ran a hand down his mane, and smirked when Tony playfully rolled his eyes at her insistence and nodded to her. He knew how much she hated it when his hair grew too long for her taste, and he could not really blame her: he hated it, too. It made his scalp and neck itch.

"Yes, Pep. Haircut after that."

She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, but she was only able to do so for a few seconds before her legs told her to stop. She rested her hands on his shoulders for support and he held her by the waist, giving her the time she needed for her muscles to recover from the both small and yet significant exertion, given her condition. Once she nodded to him to let him know she was ready to get out of the shower, he responded by lifting her in his arms, shutting down the stream of water, and taking her with him outside.

"I can walk, you know?" she asked with a small tone of annoyance, but she still surrounded his neck with her arms lest the rubbing of their wet, bare skins made him lose his grip on her.

"I know," he did not stop their trek to the bedroom, despite her bothered tone and look. He then added with a smug smile: "That doesn't mean you should."

Pepper opened her mouth to retort, but when it dawned on her that he was simply repeating a phrase she had used on him many times when he was unnecessarily pushing himself beyond his limits, she could only close it back up and roll her eyes.

"Fine," she told him. "Whatever you say, Mr. Stark."

"Keep that thought in mind next time we have sex, Mrs. Potts-Stark."

The snort that escaped her mouth was all but graceful, but neither of them cared. What actually mattered to them was that they still had something to laugh about. And that they still had each other, no matter what.

xxxXXXxxx

The stares they were both currently receiving briefly reminded them of the time they had first walked inside the Tomorrow Academy, the day after they had started their romantic relationship, and every student around had stopped what they had been doing to witness their entrance to the school. It was a long time since that had occurred, and yet Pepper could not deny that nothing had changed in that regard. People were still people – gossipy and nosey, no matter their age. This time, however, it took only a quick look from her, Tony, or even from Happy for their unwanted gawkers to return to their mundane tasks.

"Must be new here," Tony said under his breath while he walked next to his wife, hand-in-hand. "Happy, what do you know about these people? I don't recognize some of them."

"New employees, for sure," Happy replied, puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger than he actually was, and then stared left and right before he pressed the up button of the elevator at Stark International. "I had memorized everyone's faces, but I haven't kept up with the updates. I'll catch up."

"You know that's not your job anymore, Happy," Pepper reminded him with a small smile. "You have other things to do now. You don't have to worry about me anymore."

Happy gave her a look that showed his disapproval of her words, and as the elevator doors opened up to let the trio in, Happy voiced his thoughts.

"When has that line _ever_ worked with any of us, Pepper?"

"Never," Pepper replied with a disappointed sigh and pressed the up button inside the elevator. "But I was hoping it did this time around. You're no longer my bodyguard, Happy. You don't have to keep up with everything and everyone about this company, or ours, to do your job."

"Yeah, I do," Happy replied.

"How do you figure?" Tony asked.

"Well, first: I'm covering for you, man. Iron Man needs to be aware of _everything_. And second: I need to know who works for Stark Solutions so that I can make sure that only authorized personnel use my athletic facilities."

"OK, there's that," Tony agreed. "But that doesn't apply to Stark International. Especially not after today."

"True," Happy conceded. "But even after you cut them lose, this company will still be tied to you because it will one day be yours. Like it or not, Tony, you'll inherit the company, and you'll have to learn all about it, too."

"I try not to think about that, Happy," Tony replied with a pained grimace.

"Your dad doesn't need to be dead for you to get the company, Tony," Pepper said and patted the inventor's arm, his discomfort with the topic plainly obvious to her. "That's not what Happy means. But he does have a point. One day your dad will want to retire, and it will become _your_ responsibility to take the reign of your family's company."

"You mean_ our_ responsibility, Pepper," he said and waved his hand between the two of them. "You've got my name, too."

"True," Pepper said and then busied herself inputting the VIP code so that the elevator took them directly to the SI board meeting room without stopping. "But the current charter of SI makes me only the guardian of the inheritance by default, not by birth right. If… if Jimmy had lived… he… you know, he would've been the one to…"

Even if her statement had not been completely uttered, she knew she did not have to further explain what she had meant. This, in fact, was one of the reasons why Tony and Pepper had called this extraordinary board meeting to take place – one that was going to be uncomfortable and difficult enough already to want to bring up the memories of their dead son. The silence that followed her comment floated in the air until the elevator opened again to show Howard, Trish, Bambi, Jarvis, Virgil and Diane, all waiting outside the main board room.

"Oh, thank heavens, they're here!" Diane said, quickly approached the three youngsters that were now standing in front of their elders, and then hugged the redhead and the inventor at the same time. "Pepper, Tony, are you sure you two are ready for this? It's not going to be pretty. Just tell us what you want to tell them, and me and your father will deal with the vultures in there. You don't have to deal with their bullshit. Not today."

"Today? What's so special about today?" Pepper asked and immediately pulled out her pod to check the historical records of the agendas for all meetings.

"Son," Howard placed a hand on Tony's shoulder after Diane released them. "The board members came _in person_. They don't know why you called this meeting, but they want to use it as their mandatory meeting for renewing their positions and yours since they haven't seen any of you in a while."

"What does that mean?" Happy asked, not sure if he needed to be ready to punch people in the face or to carry Pepper and Tony the hell out of the place if the meeting got rough. He had only attended the meeting with them because they had seemed nervous about calling the assembly altogether, and even if he had not understood half of what Pepper and Tony had been discussing on the way there, Happy knew how to read a troubled tone when he heard one. Besides, he was well aware of how exhausting and unpredictable these meetings could become.

"It means that the board wants to renegotiate the terms of our contract," Pepper explained as she read the agendas of the already missed and upcoming scheduled board meetings. "Our five-year partnership was supposed to be up for discussion last month. We only have one year left of it and we should've given them the year-long notice in May. Ending it now is a breach of contract that requires us to compensate them for early-termination, which we were gonna do, anyway."

"Early termination?" Trish asked, a worried look on her face. "You called this meeting to end the partnership?"

"Yes," Tony said and stared at his father. "I was going to tell you I was considering it, Dad. But I wasn't sure about it. But then Pepper and I talked and… well…"

Howard raised his right hand to his son and shook his head.

"Anthony, you don't have to explain anything to me. You're an adult and you have a family of your own now," Howard smiled fondly at Pepper. "Your decisions are just that: yours and Pepper's alone."

Tony smiled at his father, tightened his grip on Pepper's hand, and she squeezed it back in return.

"I still don't know why this is a bad thing," Happy stated, confused as he had once felt when _math had gotten letters_, back in high school.

"It means they're going to give us a hard time leaving," Pepper replied as she now thoroughly considered a situation she and Tony had not thought about before. "We just wanted to come here and tell them goodbye, but now we're gonna have to fight to get what we want. We can't vote for the renewal of their seats if we're ending the partnership early, but if they can't be voted for renewal of their seats, then they can't release us from the contract. And if we vote to renew their seats, we have to extend the partnership for five more years."

"Then… don't end it early?" Happy supplied.

"We have to," Tony said. "If we don't end it early, and something happens to us tomorrow, our company is up for grabs."

"Up for grabs?" Virgil asked, almost as confused as Happy was. He may have married Diane and he may have been the Head of Security at SI, but he was years away from fully understanding the policy side of the company he worked for. "Why would Stark Solutions be up for grabs if something happened to you two?"

"Because we lost our heir," Pepper said, trying to sound as composed as she could. "If something happened to Tony, the company would still be mine, but without the main inventor, I'm completely disposable for the board unless there's an heir. If something happens to the both of us, then there's no one left to take the company, and the SI board has power over its future while the partnership is in place."

"This is why I'd written an exclusion to get out of the contract whenever I wanted, and to be able to change the terms mid-contract in case of a qualifying life event," Tony explained. "So, after Howie was born, we altered the clause to make sure only Rhodey, his legal guardian in the event of our deaths, would be able to make this decision, and not the board, so that they couldn't just take the company away as long as there was an heir, even if Pepper and I weren't around. I was trying to protect my son's and my wife's future, and now I've just screwed it all up."

"So," Virgil asked as he tried to wrap his head around the situation at hand. "If something did happen to you two tomorrow, and you didn't end this partnership now, and seeing as there is no heir…"

"Then anyone can buy our inventions, our stock… our old weapon designs. Anyone with money can mass produce our suits, and all the other weapons I've created for the armors. Everything becomes buyable and sellable if the SI board says so, with the excuse that they will need to do so to recover damages after losing the main inventor behind the business."

"So S.H.I.E.L.D. could buy them, too," Bambi covered her right cheek with her hand. "And that's probably _why _Nick Fury is in there, right now."

At the mention of Nick Fury's presence in the building, Pepper and Tony's expressions instantly changed, and they stared at each other's eyes in silence. The bystanders did not know what was crossing the CEOs' minds, and although they knew there was some bad blood between the superhero duo and the head of the peacekeeping organization, the look on their faces said that there was something deeper between Nick, Pepper, and Tony than what met the eye.

The quiet eye exchange ended as abruptly as it had started, leaving everyone else wondering what exactly had just occurred. With the meeting already delayed enough, though, there was no time to ask the details of the silent chat.

"Can you get Roberta on the line, Bambi, please?" Tony asked as he took out his pod to review the old contracts Stark Solutions had once had with S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Yes, sir. Immediately."

The executive assistant was followed by Trish and Jarvis to Trish's old desk as she began the task of tracking the traveling attorney. Pepper turned to Happy and her father to ask them to stay outside the board room, but to be on the lookout for any other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that may arrive. Virgil immediately responded by removing the safety clip of his gun, and Happy turned on his Stark Solutions-issued bracelets – the ones Tony had designed for him and for Pepper to use when needed so that they did not have to be carrying their armor backpacks everywhere they went. These were the same bracelets that had already saved Pepper's life once, when the intruder had tried to attack her at the penthouse.

Shortly after Pepper's attention was returned to Tony, Howard, and Diane, the four of them gave each other a single nod, waved to their loved ones, and walked inside the board room to be _greeted_ by the ten guests in the special gathering enclave: the remaining nine of Diane's fellow board members of Stark International, and Nicholas Joseph Fury, in the flesh.

As soon as they set foot inside the room, everyone went quiet, stood up from their chairs, and stared at the newcomers, particularly at the young Stark couple trailing behind Howard and Diane. It had been months since the duo had attended these meetings and, for an instant, it felt like high school for the second time on the same day. The stares, the narrowing, judging eyes, and even the murmurs were all present. This time, nonetheless, no amount of glaring on Tony or Pepper's part would make them dissipate.

"Fashionably late, as always, Tony. _Potts_," Minerva, the _still annoying bitch_, as Pepper referred to her, snidely commented. "It appears time has not made any of you more responsible. Shame on that."

"And it appears that time has made you show your age in forgetfulness," Tony replied, quicker than Pepper could even take in a deep breath to make any remark. "You forgot that it's no longer just Tony, but Mr. Stark, to you. And that she's not just Potts. She's _Mrs_. Stark."

"Still?" Minerva replied, not at all amused by Tony's retort. "That's not what I read in the news. Weren't you supposed to be divorced by now because your _wife_ gave her bodyguard a blow job? Or was it to another rich guy she wanted to cheat out of his money?"

"I think you were reading your own article, Minerva," Pepper responded as she held back Tony's forwarding body with a squeeze of their intertwined hands. "How's the, uhm, what is it again? Oh, yeah! _Fifth _ex-husband, by the way? Still hanging around your former maid behind your back? Or was this the one that left for cigarettes and never returned?"

"Talk all you want, Potts," Minerva said and took a seat. "At least they had the decency to end the marriage after infidelity. You, on the other hand, decided that Tony's money was worth keeping around despite you having the nerve to be unfaithful to him on multiple occasions. Honestly, what do you give him that he is unable to let go of a filthy woman like you?"

"Watch your tongue, Minerva," Diane said in a warning tone.

"Why should I?" the irritating woman continued. "Just because she got knocked up by him, it doesn't make her any less unworthy of our class! She didn't earn her riches! She humped her way up to be with us! Her family is as lowly as the man who takes out the trash at my house!"

"He must not do a good job," Pepper said, eyes narrowed, and the rest of the board members sat in their chairs, one by one. "Seeing as he still hasn't taken _you _out."

"And you know all about trash, huh, Minerva?" Tony interjected while he helped Pepper take a seat by holding back the chair for her. "Pepper didn't cheat on me. I didn't cheat on her. The only one here who tried to cheat on someone was you when you tried to have sex with me in my office, years ago. Or did you forget about that?"

"I… I…" Minerva swallowed hard, breathed loudly through her nostrils, and hoped her eyes were not about to pop out of their sockets. "I _never_…"

Before the woman could further deny any of Tony's words, Pepper took out her pod, loaded the footage of Minerva's attempt at seducing Tony in the old Stark Solutions office, back when it had been hosted in the Stark International building just a few floors below them, and played it on the projector in the middle of the room. None of Minerva's attempts at turning off the video feed made any difference as Pepper had long ago found a way to control every part of the board room, and Minerva could barely check her e-mail on a desktop.

"This jog your memory, _Ma'am_?"

Minerva glared at Pepper. Without having anything else to do or say, the older woman simply looked away and ignored the inquisitorial faces of everyone in the room. Everyone watched as the silent clip showed Minerva approaching an unsuspecting Tony in his office, placing her hands on his shoulders, turning him in place, pushing him back against his desk, then grabbing the bottom of his shirt and attempting to pull it up while the blue-eyed boy recoiled in surprised horror. The clip then started again from the beginning.

"You were lucky that Tony had already turned eighteen a few months before this," Pepper mocked the older woman. "You just barely avoided a legal hassle there. Still, do the words _sexual harassment_ mean anything to you, Minerva? How about _pedophile_?" Pepper's statement earned no responses other than blank stares that indicated the speechlessness of the viewers. The redhead had lived years knowing that secret, and she was glad to finally be able to tell the world exactly just how abhorrent Minerva Gonzales truly was.

Tony eyed every single member of the board in the room, particularly Minerva and Mitch, and when neither of them made eye contact, Tony cleared his throat and turned off the continuously looping video feed Pepper had used to end the current argument.

"Well, now that that's settled," Tony took a seat next to Pepper, on the opposite end to Howard Stark of the large rectangular table, and spoke again. "I'll call the meeting to order, but not until our uninvited guest is removed from the premises."

"He's my guest," Mitch stated. "He's not uninvited."

Tony and Pepper stared at each other briefly, then at Nick Fury, and then the redhead spoke again.

"Fine, but Mr. Fury must state the motive for his presence. Our reason for calling this meeting is an internal matter and none of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s business."

"He's here because we expect to vote on the renewal of our contract with Stark Solutions and of our seats on the board," Mitch replied. "And S.H.I.E.L.D. has some ideas that can greatly increase our profits if we involve them in the negotiations of the continuation of our partnership with Stark Solutions. Mr. Fury is here to… well… he's our weapons adviser, you can say."

"Then he is not needed for the first part of this meeting," Tony remarked and glared at Fury. "He can either come in after, or he can make his case right now before we relay our news to the board."

"I say we call a vote," Mitch said. "All those in favor of General Fury staying throughout the meeting as our weapons expert, please say aye."

"Aye!" the voice of eight of the ten board members resounded in the room.

"Any opposed?" Mitch asked and Pepper, Tony, Diane, Howard and Claire raised their hands. "Majority in favor. We proceed."

Tony and Pepper stared at one another one more time, silently nodded at each other, sighed loudly while they shook their heads, and then returned their attention to the board.

"We may proceed," Pepper gulped as discretely as possible so as not to let the board members know that she was not as sure of herself as she always appeared to be to the people that had made their lives hell for nearly five years. She straightened her back as much as she could despite the remnants of pain in her, stood up in place, rested her fingertips on the edge of the table, cleared her throat and stared everyone in the eye before she spoke again.

"And we would like to begin with the announcement of the early termination of our partnership with Stark International, effective immediately."

Everyone present, with the exception of Diane and Howard, visibly flinched for an instant. Loud and overlapping arguments ensued after the unexpected declaration, and angry finger pointing and cries of mutiny followed. Pepper and Tony remained calm and collected through it all, both already used to the board's pouting antics by now. The couple had expected this and more. In fact, the short interruption gave Pepper and Tony time to think about their next words. They had expected to hear all kinds of arguments, even listen to all types of verbal threats. But with Nick Fury speaking the language of money to the board, it was going to be even that much more challenging to come out of this situation untouched.

The board members eventually calmed down after the intervention of Howard's authoritative voice with words that spoke of his demand for absolute composure. The silence that then befell the entire room was elongated and uncomfortable. And just when Tony and Pepper were ready to claim a small victory, Mitch scoffed derisively and spoke again.

"You can't do that. We need to approve that decision and it's obvious we aren't going to."

"That's actually correct," Minerva began. "You had a deadline of 365 calendar days to give a non-renewal notice, and that deadline has passed. You have no choice but to renew for five more years."

Tony turned his hands into fists under the table, yet his face remained unchanged. He had naively hoped that the board was not aware of those exact details of the contract, but he should have known better than to think the board members of SI would let go of their largest source of income without a fight. He took a moment to stare at Nick Fury's gloating standing posture in the back, cursed at him with a quick glare, and just when he was about to take control of the meeting to save Pepper from the second round of insults, his redhead spoke up once more.

"No. You're wrong," she replied solemnly and full of confidence, as one of Tony's previous statements suddenly gave her an idea she could not believe they had not thought of before – perhaps due to the fact that the situation had not warranted thinking that far ahead of themselves until now. "We don't _need_ your approval."

"Yes, you do," Mitch insisted and stood up from his chair to point at the ginger. "You can't end the partnership without a vote, and we can't vote until you vote to renew us. And even if you abstain from voting, we will vote for ourselves and then vote to continue the partnership… with or _without_ you two in it."

"No. You _can't_," Pepper said, pushed back her chair, and slowly walked towards a now incoming Mitch.

"Why the hell not?" Mitch asked and did not stop his gait until he stood right in front of Pepper Potts-Stark, hoping that his taller figure psychologically imposed on her much smaller frame. Tony immediately stood up from his chair as well, but he kept himself from interfering just yet. He had promised to himself that he would let Pepper fight her fights, and jump in only if she requested to… or if her life was in imminent danger, whichever happened first.

"Why _exactly_ can't we vote to renew your contract for as long as we want?" Mitch asked, conceit reeking from his tone of voice.

"Because," Pepper began in a steady voice and crossed her arms over her chest, "A qualifying life event has occurred. Our son _died_."

Tony's face briefly denoted that he had not thought about the loophole until now. If they had not been in the middle of a business meeting, and if the topic was not so grim, he would have pumped a fist in the air. He opted to simply give his wife a small, casual smile and a nod when she stared back at him for a second, but Pepper could see it in his eyes that he was more than just a little proud of her. Not having Roberta readily available for them was hurting their policy review, but even they knew that they could not rely on the woman for the rest of their lives. They were yet to find another worthy legal advisor, and if they were honest with themselves, they were not really looking forward to starting the search. They did not even want to try.

"What does that even mean?" Clark Morrison, the elder who had never wanted Pepper Potts on the board but in an insane asylum, asked. "I don't understand."

"It means," Tony interjected and stared at the board members. "That we can make amends to any part of the contract without notice as long as a qualifying life event occurs: marriage, divorce, birth… and death. And we're opting to end the partnership. _Now_."

"This is preposterous!" Mitch barked and stared Pepper up and down. "And outright unethical!"

"Just because you don't like it, it doesn't make it unethical… or illegal," Howard stated. "They have the right to end the partnership under those terms."

"I don't agree with those terms!" Minerva spat.

"Yes, you do. And you did," Pepper glared at the woman. "You agreed to the contract in its entirety, both at the beginning and when we made the amendments. You can't say you didn't know about that. Unless, of course, you pulled a page from some other board members' habits and didn't _read _what you signed."

"Howard, you can't be serious about this?" Mitch stared over his right shoulder, at the CEO of SI. "Are you really going to let this happen to all of us? We have invested a considerable amount of money and time into this partnership. Our profits will take a dive! Do you know the kind of contract we will lose out on? Do you have any idea the kind of revenue a contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. would bring to us? General, please…"

"Mr. Richards is correct." Fury said, his pose rigid and his hands behind his back. "I've come here to offer the establishment of a weapons manufacturing contract with SI and Stark Solutions, for no less than twenty years, and for triple the cost of the weapons we used to obtain from Hammer Multinational before it was bought. _Triple_, ladies and gentleman. And all you have to do is make sure we can get our hands on the weapons we need to do our job."

"Stark International doesn't. Make. Weapons, Nick," Howard said between clenched teeth. "We haven't done so for over twenty-two years. We're not restarting now."

"But Stark Solutions does," Nick stared directly at Tony in the eye. "And if anything were to happen to the world… anything at all, it would be a shame that we had no way to defend it. We can't just let _vigilantes_ have all the power," he then stared at Pepper. "We can't let _amateurs_ run the show, can we?"

"This_ amateur_ helped save _your_ fucking ship and crew from zombies, Fury."

"Once. And barely. But there's more to being responsible for the safety of others than to save the world every other year, Ms. Potts," his voice trailed a little before he then corrected the last part. "_Mrs_. Potts-_Stark_."

"And we're being responsible, Nick." Tony stated. "By not letting you or anyone else get a hold of our weapons. They're not to be messed with. These weapons are of high caliber, way beyond what you can understand and control. They're not for your or anyone else's everyday use."

"Oh, we know that," Nick said. "That's why we need them. It's better to have them and not use them, than to need them and not have them at all."

"Well, you can forget it," Tony growled. "We're NEVER selling, giving, _or_ letting you take our weapons ever again."

"Then I guess the only option we have is to vote out not only Tony Stark and his wife, but also Howard Stark, from the board," Mitch answer back.

"Mitch," Claire began. "That's not something we do around here. You know that Howard is the CEO of Stark International. He started this company! It's HIS!"

"Yes, but I also know that the last time Stark International was in a bad situation, Obadiah Stane was let go. It was done before, it can be done again."

Pepper's eyes widened and so did Tony's, and they both landed on Howard's form. Howard gave them a small smile he knew they needed, as he could see it on their faces that they felt responsible for the sudden turn of events. They had just wanted to protect their legacy and inventions, and now the board was about to turn against him.

One thing that the youngsters – or Mitch, for that matter – had not counted on, was that Howard Stark was a man of means, and he did not need threats or weapons to make sure his company remained the way he wanted it to be. Tony and Pepper had no option, given the life they led, but Howard Stark had other venues. He now knew, the moment that Mitch had uttered those words, that his son had been correct all along. The man did not belong in his company.

"Very well," Howard said and stood up. "We can leave it up to a vote. But before we can do that, we have to renew everyone's seats."

"Sounds good to me," Mitch replied from his standing position by Pepper, his eyes never stopping from glaring at her, his back still to Nick Fury and Howard Stark.

"And," Howard continued before anyone else could reply. "As such, I call upon an authority I've never used in all my time as CEO of Stark International. Didn't think I'd ever need it, really, but my legal advisor strongly suggested I included this clause."

"What clause?" Ernest asked, nervousness evident in his voice.

"The power to remove from the ballot anyone I don't deem in line with the mission and vision of SI. I could have an entire new board by tomorrow. I do have a controlling interest in my company, after all. A comparatively small margin, yes, but still higher than all of your own interests combined."

Pepper smirked when she realized what Howard had just all but implied, and when she saw it in Mitch's eyes that he too understood what was being said, she allowed her arms to drop to her sides. She tilted her head to her left; her smile growing wider as she could see the wheels beginning to turn inside Mitch's head. It did not matter what he said or did, Howard's word was final in cases such as these.

"I'd wipe that smile off your face if I didn't already know you would've tanked this company just as you will tank yours, _bitch_," Mitch snarled and took a step closer to her. The redhead straightened her head, narrowed her eyes at the man in front of her, and then spoke in a soft voice when she heard a chair behind her scraping the floor.

"Tony, don't," she pressed the panic button on her left bracelet to let Happy know that he was needed inside the room. Not a second later, she heard the front door slam open.

"It's OK, Tony," she continued. "He's just pissed that he's off the board. Calling me names is _aalll _he can do now."

"Mark my words, you little piece of shit," Mitch growled and reached over to grab Pepper by her upper arms, which caused Tony to crack his knuckles and walk towards the redhead.

"Happy: hold him," Pepper said without having to turn around to know that Tony was already in route to beat Mitch to a pulp. She knew the man had it coming, and seeing as the other board members were starting to stand up from their chairs to see what they could do stop their former peer, she had no doubt that they would advocate for the inventor if a fight were to start. Yet, with Nick Fury in the same room, and given the suspicions they had about the General's betrayal toward them, Pepper could not let her blue-eyed boy stick his foot in his mouth… or up Mitch's ass.

"Let me go!" Tony spat as he tried to release himself from Harold's grip, immediately missing the inhuman strength Extremis would have let him use on his friend to assure his freedom, and to put into place the idiot who dared to insult and manhandle his wife in front of him. "Happy, get off me!"

"See that?" Mitch pressed his fingers into the ginger's skin on her arms. "See how out of control that animal you call a husband is? That's why these things happen to you. Because neither of you are good enough, or mature enough, to be responsible for or to properly take care of anything… or anyone. How can you expect to keep your company in shape when you couldn't even keep your bastard child alive? He had it coming, you know? And I'm glad he died. He's better off as worm food than with an irresponsible woman like you, or with a pitiful asshole like him! You're nothing but a whoring, little cu–"

Pepper's response to the rest of Mitch's insult was using one of the many self-defense maneuvers her father had long ago taught her to help free herself from an attacker that had her held down with both hands. The swift move now had Mitch's left arm twisted in a way that almost pulled his shoulder out of its socket, his right arm pinned above his head, and his face practically merged with the wooden table in the room. The move had been quick and unexpected; the only evidence that it had even happened had come in the form of the redhead's current standing position behind Mitch, and the sound of his nose breaking on the spot.

Pepper leaned down over the back of Mitch's head, placed her lips close to his right ear, and then spoke eerily calmly to him, but loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"If you ever, EVER, show your face here again, or anywhere near my family – _any_ of them – I will sue you for everything you're worth. And if you ever _dare_ to touch me again, I will make sure you eat out of a straw for the rest of your life… _and_, if I ever hear you say ANYTHING about my son or my husband one more time… it WILL be the last thing you _EVER_ say again."

"Is that a threat you just issued, Mrs. Stark?" Fury dared to ask, but it only took a quick penetrating stare from the redhead for the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. to take a step back and shut his mouth.

"It's a promise, Nick. I'm done playing nice with dicks like you or cunts like her…" Pepper spat, with a glance at Minerva. "Or him," she added after she pulled on Mitch's arm one last time before she finally took a step back to let him to fall onto the floor. Her deep gaze then returned to the General. Without batting an eye, and with a commanding voice, she told him exactly what she had wanted to tell him, for a long time.

"And if you don't leave us the fuck alone, Fury, leave me _and_ Tony alone, I'm gonna let the entire world know that Rescue almost died because you failed to do your job. And I will also let everyone know that you threatened Iron Man, and that you locked him up in a padded cell without due process. _And_ that you almost let a bioweapon loose in the world because you wanted to exploit a gas you weren't allowed to even have in the first place."

"You wouldn't dare, Potts."

"Try me, Nick. Just… _try_ me, right now."

When Nick Fury only gulped in response, Pepper turned to Happy, who no longer had to hold on to Tony Stark to keep him in place. The inventor had the same look of surprise and shock on his face as everyone else in the room did, as he had never seen Pepper so viciously defend anything or anyone. He had seen her upset before, seen her in battle on countless occasions, and he had even been on the receiving end of an angry, grieving fit of hers. But this was the first time that the billionaire had ever witnessed his redhead in a full blown rage.

"Happy, get this shit out of here," she pointed at Mitch. The jock immediately complied.

"On it," Happy picked up the groaning and bleeding man, and all but threw him out the door. Pepper then gave the security guards a moment to make sure Mitch Richards was escorted out of the meeting room floor and was in route to the ground floor before she returned her eyes to the people around her.

"So, as we were saying: Stark Solutions is no longer in a contractual agreement with Stark International due to the execution of the qualifying life event clause, which you agreed upon had no expiration date per your signatures on said contract. Stark International and its members, affiliates, associates or board representatives will no longer receive any profits from Stark Solutions starting right now, and all previous agreements are therefore null and void."

The redhead then took a deep breath, stared everyone but Howard and Diane in the eye, particularly those who had for years actively sought to humiliate and mistreat her and Tony, and then added one last bit to her closing statement that she knew would hammer her point home.

"Now, if any of you sons of bitches have anything else to say, _NOW IS THE FUCKING TIME!"_

When silence was all that followed her words, and when everyone returned to their seats in slow motion, Pepper knew that she had effectively released herself and Tony from the nightmare that had been having to deal with individuals that only cared about mooching off them for years to come, and not about the goodness they could bring to the world with their funds. Then again, she suddenly realized, one more problem still remained – one more obstacle currently stood between their freedom and the chains that kept them tied to SI.

Her head, followed by her body, slowly turned to face the commander of S.H.I.E.L.D. She lifted her right hand in the air, snapped her fingers at him, and then pointed to the exit with her thumb. This was all it took for Nick Fury to get the message, loud and clear: his plan had failed, and he was now left with no choice but to storm out.

Pepper did not even bother to look back to make sure Fury was gone, and she did not even bother to acknowledge the scene she had just caused. All she cared about now was that Stark Solutions was no longer in debt with anything and anyone, that Tony was no longer the recipient of Mitch's insults, and that all of her and Tony's efforts could now be focused on finding out who wanted to end their lives. There would be no more investors breathing down their neck for more money-making inventions. No more board meetings to be dragged into only to be belittled and treated as less than scum. No more partnerships that threatened the future of what she and Tony had worked for years to build. Nothing. It was all gone. All that she had left now was Tony and their quest to find the assassin of their son.

"Pepper?" Tony said in a loving tone, as if he was trying his best not to set her off again, but he was afraid that he would fail. Her face immediately softened at hearing his voice. The veil she had not known had covered her senses when Mitch had uttered those hurtful words was instantly lifted now that the menace was gone. She stared down at her hands for a moment, recalled the last time she had felt like this – a long time ago, inside a submarine – and then swallowed hard as she regained control of her body, heart, mind, and soul, one by one.

"Tony," she said and turned around in place to stare at the billionaire, all remnants of the anger she had felt moments ago gone from her face. "Let's go home, please."

"Alright," he said with a nod and extended his hand to her, which she immediately walked over to and gently grabbed.

"Come're, Pep. It's OK," he said once she was within reach. He then noticed that not only was she shaking, but bruises were already forming on her upper arms, courtesy of an angry little man who had badmouthed her and what she held dear in life. "Are you gonna be alright?"

"Yes," she let him brush her bangs out of her face and run the back of his right hand down her left cheek. She briefly closed her eyes, took in deep, calming breaths, and opened her eyes only when she felt sane enough to do so. "I'll be OK. I'll be alright."

Tony stared at her crestfallen form one more time before he kissed her forehead and pulled her trembling body towards his. His arms surrounded her body, his gaze landed on his father and, with one look, the older Stark told his son he would take care of the aftermath of what had just occurred before them. Tony gratefully nodded once to his father, gave an apologetic look to the still stunned board members, and then took his redhead with him on his way out of the room, all the while wondering what had just taken over his wife… and fearing that it would come back during the worst of times.

That night, Tony Stark hardly slept at all, and instead spent the dark hours watching his slumbering redhead in his arms, pondering if the intruder in the penthouse had given Pepper more than just an almost broken back: an almost broken back that appeared to be healing much faster than he had been told by the doctors that it would – an injury that should have not taken just weeks to heal, but several months. He wondered if it had also given her a covert one-way ticket to a place where uncontrolled emotions would take reign of her life.

_Pepper_, he thought with ache at the possibility that the bounty on her had already begun, right before his eyes. _What have they done to you?_

xxxXXXxxx

_She watched as the redhead left the room without another word, and she instantly felt the world crush her body and mind. Even after seeing the footage, even after hearing herself recall every detail of the inhumane things she had done to Pepper, even after __**hearing**__ forgiveness from the redhead's mouth, Whitney Stane would never completely believe she was capable of the feat she had been told she had done. The evidence was damning, however, and denial and self-pity would never replace or erase the feeling of guilt that would haunt her for the rest of her life._

_ She had done a horrible thing; she had almost taken a life, and forever she would have to live with the fact that the mask had taken her emotions to a new high: a level that not even she was aware she could achieve in the blink of an eye._

_ Her thoughts were interrupted when the doors opened up again. She had expected to see Fury or Hill walk back inside to take her back to her cell, but instead she was left speechless and in shock when the current newcomer turned out to be the last person she had anticipated to see ever again in her life._

_ "Tony?" Whitney uttered his name with dread, and it only took one look from the inventor for her to know that his reason for visiting her at S.H.I.E.L.D. was not the same that had led the redhead to have mercy on her life. Anger was emanating from every pore in his body, and if she had not already feared enough what Tony had to say to her, she could now say with utmost certainty that she was terrified of him and his presence in the room._

_ The inventor made a beeline for the same end of the table where Pepper had just been sitting at, minutes ago, unaware of his presence in the Helicarrier. He threw the chair out of the way and against the glass wall, rested his weight on the edge of said table, and then leaned down to stare at Whitney's reddening and blotching eyes._

_ "If S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't outside right now…" he said with barely controlled rage. "If they wouldn't shoot me where I stood without warning for touching you, and if I didn't love Pepper as much as I do, I would've __**killed **__you as soon as I walked inside this room."_

_ "T-Tony… please… I…"_

_ "Shut up!" Tony spat. "You and I have lots to talk about, Whitney. LOTS to talk about. But you're gonna hear __**me**__, first, whether you want to or not."_

_ The blonde swallowed hard and licked her lips to prepare herself for the world of pain she knew Tony was going to put her through, and even if she once or twice had expertly handled an upset man, she would soon know that nothing had ever prepared her to deal with the man that loved the one woman she had almost succeeded in taking away from his life._

* * *

**A/N:** Does anyone know who I borrowed a line from for Pepper towards the end? Hint: It's a movie. Any questions answered with this chapter? It's coming to an end, my Faithful Readers! Two more chapters and the Epilogue and T5Y is OVER! Then the epic finale begins… It's getting tense… and the angst is gonna intensify! Thank you for reading and reviewing and I will see all of you again, soon!

BTW: Anyone seen _Mockingjay: Part 1_? I did yesterday and _DAMN_!


	8. Chapter 7

**Guest Review Responses**

**Guest: Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when your updating. Every thing is awesome. Please keep up. – **lol! I read that singing the 'Everything is Awesome' song from The Lego Movie.

**Toni: '... broken back that appeared to be healing much faster than he had been told by the doctors that it would – an injury that should have not taken just weeks to heal, but several months.' Wait. What?! How? Oh, and I don't like Fury. He's up to something. I don't believe is all bad though. – **coughcough… how about after this chapter? ;)

**Someone: You've just bamboozled me even more with the whole Gene thing...trying to be mysterious, eh? I'LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH! MWU HA HA HA HA! ...yeah...maybe I've been having too much coffee too! Oooooosh...If Pepper was real, I'd be hiding under my covers! -WAIT NO! SCRATCH THAT! I don't care if she's real or not! I'M STILL HIDING! Don't mess with the Pepper! Lol, I loved reading that :D It was really well written too! I thought they were gonna loose, but they didn't! But...you just HAD to ruin it by adding in the last two scenes -_- SOMETHING ELSE HAS HAPPENED TO PEPPER?! You just can't leave them alone can you?! Ugh...even though it was an AWESOME chappie... You better update soon! I'm warning you...(I could possibly turn into Pepper Potts-Stark...you wouldn't want that, would you?) O_o – **What if I say that I will _kinda_ leave them alone next chapter? Does it make it better? Or at least until the last story starts :D

**apps: Very well said"everyone will be screwed if pepper goes evil"...even I wonder what is wrong with peppers back healing faster than expected! – **And we will know at the beginning of the new story… once I get to it… at some point… before I die… or start school… whichever happens last. ^_^

**Guest: You know, Sometimes waiting for your updates brings me pain. Always on the edge of finally knowing everything and yet we are still discovering new tiny details that screw up our theories. Please update or i might end up in a nuthouse. Thanks. – **Aw, man! If you give me the address of the nuthouse, I promise I will go to it and bust you out after you read this chapter. Yup, it's gonna be THAT intense.

* * *

**Chapter 7: July**

"If I didn't know any better, Tony," Pepper said in a bored tone, her chin resting on her folded arms, and her folded arms on one of the work tables at the Stark Solutions private, clinical analysis lab, eyes half closed in tiredness, "I'd say you WANT to find something wrong with me."

"Good thing you know better," the inventor retorted without even looking at her, rubbed her right hand quickly and lightly to make sure his words were not interpreted incorrectly, and he then returned his full attention to what Dr. Bruce Banner was explaining to him.

"So, in conclusion," Bruce said as he pointed at the computer screen to several numbers on it to support his findings. "Pepper is in excellent health. Her organs are working at optimum level. Her blood work shows nothing abnormal. CAT and MRI scans are clean, and other than minor scrapes here and there on her body, she is as healthy as someone of her age should be. Even her back has healed almost completely, and she will no longer experience any discomfort at all from it, very soon."

Tony's furrowed brow did not disappear; he instead frowned even more as he stared at the results of the many laboratory tests he had put Pepper through. The billionaire had double-checked the results several times in the past couple of weeks, and so had Pepper for that matter, relying mostly on her limited knowledge of the science behind the tests thanks to her graduate degree. Even _she_ could see that there was nothing medically wrong with her body or mind.

_This can't be right_, Tony tried to keep his thoughts to himself, but it was obvious both to the redhead and the doctor in the room that he was not at all convinced that everything was alright with his wife. He had relied on medical tests before to determine if his son and he had been normal and healthy, but those tests had eventually failed him. As a result, the inventor now knew better than to unquestionably rely on science to give him all the answers he sought and wanted. Even if he was a man of science, even if he had believed all his life that science could explain everything that took place on Earth – and even outside of it, he was starting to question everything he had once thought to be absolute.

Pepper stared at her husband, almost hearing the internal battle taking place in him. She was yet to determine the cause of his recent reservations and distress regarding her health. After the experiences she had survived, however, she surely could not blame him for it. His worry was beginning to border on paranoia, nevertheless, and she just could not let him fall prey of his antics when there was clearly no need for it. Doctor Ross had given her a clean bill of health. Her OB/GYN, Doctor Adler, had as well. And now, even Doctor Banner agreed with everyone else: she was alright – better than alright. Why was Tony so unwilling to believe their word?

"Bruce?" Pepper stood up straight in the chair and gave the Hulk's alter ego a warm smile. "Do you mind giving us a moment?"

"Not at all," Bruce answered and returned the smile. Even in his human form, Hulk still remembered how amusing and kind Pepper had been to him, and the scientist could almost hear Hulk say he would do whatever _Funny Pepper_ asked him to do for her. "I'll be right outside, if you need me."

"Thanks," Pepper replied, stood up from the chair, and slowly walked towards an inventor who was yet realize they were now alone in the lab. His eyes were glued to the numbers on the computer screen, doing and redoing the calculations in his head. It was not until she surrounded his waist from behind with her arms, and until she pressed the left side of her face to his back, that his mind snapped back to reality.

"Pepper?"

He did not turn back to face her, but he did grab one of her hands in his, took it to rest against his chest, and allowed himself to cherish the memory their current positions triggered in him. It was just like years ago, back in the Makluan Temple, when he had been brave enough to tell her and show her what her presence did to his heart. That moment had been the start of who they were now, and not in a million years had he ever imagined that a life with the person you loved could grow within you the conflicting feelings of perpetual yearning and wholeness, both at the same time.

Many years had passed since that milestone, and many ups and downs had also come around. But it was in moments like these that he let his mind believe they were still teens attending high school, worrying about their next major class project or exam, and not about finding out who wanted them dead. It was when it was just the two of them like this, alone together, that he could pretend that all the horrible things that had occurred had been nothing but an extremely long and wicked dream.

"Are you gonna tell me what's going on inside that head of yours, or do I have get you drunk to make you talk?"

Tony closed his eyes and lightly chuckled, grateful that, even in tense situations such as these, Pepper could still steal a smile from him. She had been so patient with him and his incessant requests for running test after test on her, and for that he was nothing but indebted to her. He was certain that she was not sure what he was looking for since he was not sure himself, but after weeks of lying to himself and delaying the inevitable, he would just have to come out and tell her what had been keeping him up and night, watching her sleep and breathe. He just had to tell her what he feared would happen to her.

"I'm gonna get the vodka," she said when he took a long time to say anything to her, and she began pulling away from him. "Just wait right here."

"No, wait," he said, twirled on the stool to face her, and stood up from it to hold her by her waist. "Just, give me a sec, OK?"

"OK," she replied with skepticism, a single eyebrow arched in a questioning manner, and her hands rested on his upper arms. "You obviously want to talk, but do you want to do it here or do you want to go back home?"

"Here," he said immediately. Even if he had been working on improving the small lab Pepper had begun building in their new house – the former Rhodes' home – said lab was far from complete or ready to run the test he wanted to carry. The only other location that could have given him the resources he needed to do what he wanted to do at the moment would have been the Makluan Temple itself, and while the place deserved a visit, he figured it was best to just get it over with here and now. Time was a wasting, and he did not want to lose anymore.

"Pepper, I want to run one more test."

Pepper momentarily closed her eyes and exhaled. When she opened them again, Tony could see in her features and pose that she was not really upset by his request, but that she was simply tired and confused. With her gaze, she pleaded for him to just explain to her what was crossing his overactive mind. Tony nodded to her, quickly understanding her silent question. After taking a deep breath himself, he tightened his grip on her waist, rubbed his thumbs under her blouse and on her skin, and then readied himself for what was to come.

"I…" his eyes drifted away from hers and toward the computer screen, but only for an instant, before he returned his blue orbs to her hazel ones, a hint of hesitancy embedded in them. "Pep, I want to test you for… for Extremis."

Pepper's head instantaneously recoiled and her eyes shifted left and right. She closed her eyes momentarily, shook her head lightly, as if she needed her ears to clear-up, and then opened her eyes once more.

"What?"

"I," he began with a sigh. "I know what you're thinking…"

"I think it's pointless."

"Yes, and I know what it sounds like…"

"It sounds crazy."

"Right, but please… please just hear me out."

Pepper opened her mouth to retort with a negative remark, but the words he had just uttered reminded her that they had made a pact to talk things out, regardless of how farfetched their thoughts first sounded to either of them. He _had_ kept his end of the bargain by listening to her crazy conspiracy theories regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. and its possible involvement in the death of their son, so it was only fair that she extended the same courtesy to him that he had already extended to her.

"OK," she said with a nod. "Tell me why."

"Thank you," he said with honesty, took a second to somewhat order his thoughts, and then began relaying to her as best he could what his mind had been torturing him with for the past couple of weeks.

"Look, Pepper, I… I've been thinking, wondering, really – suspecting, actually – that you may have Extremis in you… even if it's just a tiny bit. Tinier than what I have."

"OK. And why do you think that?"

"I'm not sure," he said with a shrug. "But… I think… I-I think that it has something to do with the attack at the penthouse… and Howie, he-he... those files you hacked from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. And you should, too… you know? You should let me do it. And then there's the mood swings… and the way I felt and reacted after you helped me turn off Extremis. And then when Fury took me to the Helicarrier… and the baby food bottles…"

Pepper pulled her hands away from him, rubbed her temples with her fingertips, and then closed her eyes when she felt the onset of a headache. She was trying to order in her mind what her husband's scattered thoughts were trying to communicate to her, but after losing nearly two pints of blood to the multiple tests she had undergone today, it was difficult to read him as easily as she typically did when he rambled on and on, his mind working faster than his mouth could talk.

"I… I'm not saying _no_, Tony. You can test me for it if you really want, but you have to break it down for me so that I can understand. So that I can help. What's… what's going on? How would I even have it in me?"

"Well," he scratched the back of his neck with his right hand, took a step back from her, and began pacing the room and gesturing with his hands as he voiced his thoughts. "Extremis is a virus, right? And viruses are contagious."

"Right. But Extremis it's not airborne."

"Yes, but it is DNA-embedded. DNA transferable, you can say."

"Yeah… but our blood types don't match. We've never even transferred blood to each other. Ever."

"Yes," he said with hesitancy and then stared at her with a look she could only imagine was of minor embarrassment. "But… you know. We… we've exchanged DNA… in other ways… lots of times…"

"O-oh," she looked at the floor, not sure why thinking about what Tony had just implied made her self-conscious. It was no secret, to anyone, what they did behind closed doors. It was not as if they had not been together for years, or as if they had not once had a child together, but she figured that it was different to live in the moment and then go back to normal than to talk about their intimacy in such a clinical manner.

"I," she continued. "I hadn't thought about it like that."

"And neither had I… until recently."

"OK," she took a seat in the nearest chair she could find. "Talk me through it."

"OK, well… your back, for example."

"My back."

"Yes."

"What about it?"

"It healed. It just… something… someone _beat _you, Pepper. Someone hit your back with probably everything they had, hard enough to make you pass out, and it just… _healed_. It's almost back to normal! It didn't heal overnight like it would have done for me if I'd gone through the same thing and Extremis was activated in me. But it did heal pretty fucking fast."

"OK, I guess, yes. But how would that make you think that I have Extremis?"

"Your mood," he replied, walked closer to her, and kneeled before her on the floor. "The way you behaved during the final board meeting. You… you were vicious, babe. I mean, I know that those assholes gave you – gave _us_, hell for years, but you… you even scared me, a little bit. For a moment there, I wasn't sure if you would listen to me at all."

"_So_… your theory consists of a healing back and mood swings, and your conclusion is that I have Extremis? So, you're pretty much saying that I can't defend myself, you, or my deceased son, unless I have something wrong with me?"

"What? No! Not at all! You can totally hold your own, Pep. It's just… the way you did it… it reminded me of when I killed Rhona. I-I was so afraid that Fury was going to take you away from me that day. I… I'm still afraid that he may one day knock down our door and take you."

"I," Pepper bit back another insulting retort, shook her head once, and then sighed. Tony did have a good point. Up until now, she had not even thought about what her little scene in front of the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. could mean for her freedom or for her blue-eyed boy. Fury could very well be preparing for her arrest right now, and she would have had it coming even more if she had done everything she had wanted to do to Mitch Richards, up to and including making sure he never ever conceived in his life.

"I'm sorry, Tony," she finally said. "I'm trying to be supportive here, I really am. But you're not giving me enough to buy into it."

"I actually think I am. The way you behaved that day… it reminded me of me when you first turned off Extremis in me. Remember how I was that night that… well, when we got that call from Rhodey? I was practically shaking. And the way you acted during the meeting, it looked like withdrawals to me. As if whatever leftover Extremis in you is running out and it's making your body want more."

The redhead took another silent moment to consider the billionaire's words, made some mental math of dates, and then stared at his crouching figure once more.

"So, what you're saying is that I need to have sex with you again tonight to get my required dose for this week?"

"No, I–" he shook his head. "I don't think you get it from that. I think… I think you got some when you were pregnant with Howie. And then you had some left over after he was born. And he had it all along. He… he just _had_ to have had it. So… when you breastfed him… he might have _shared _some with you. I… I don't know."

"But, Tony, Jimmy has been gone for months! And every test that we ran on him came back negative. Hell, even the tests that S.H.I.E.L.D. ran… came… back… oh… _no_…"

"Then, there's that," Tony said, his voice lowered. "Our tests of Extremis on him came back negative, but we both know there was something special in him. He… he was strong at times, Pepper, more than a little guy his age should've been. And-and he could _see_ things. Things that _we_ couldn't see. I don't know how or why. I can't really explain it, but I know he did. I think…. I think he saw whatever attacked me and him that night… the same whatever that attacked you, too. I think he could see right through it, all the time… and that's why our son is gone."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Pepper stood up from the chair to walk over to one of the many computers in the lab. Tony followed her and stood behind her as he watched her work the system to pull up the files she needed from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. She placed the opened documents side by side; one showing the results of the tests S.H.I.E.L.D. had ran on James, and the other showing the document that Tony had signed without his knowledge, accepting responsibility for the death of his son.

"Son of a bitch," she mumbled, her mind piecing together what Tony had figured out, days ago. "The visit to S.H.I.E.L.D… the day we took Jimmy to the Helicarrier…"

"Three days before he died," Tony supplied as he pointed to the date on the laboratory tests results that were on the screen. "S.H.I.E.L.D. said that the results were negative, but then they wrote this paper saying that he died of complication of Extremis, when just a few days before, they had sworn nothing was wrong with him."

"Then one of these papers is a complete lie," Pepper said. "And I bet it's the one blaming you for it."

"I think so, too," he agreed. "I think that when S.H.I.E.L.D. took me to the Helicarrier for killing Rhona, they ran those tests on me to learn more about how the virus worked. You were right on that, Pep. _They_ did this to me. They were the ones who had the virus in the first place, right? They were the ones experimenting on it. They wanted to see what they could do with it in me."

"But, Tony," Pepper shook her head and turned around to face the inventor. "You and I were both there when the tests were run. We monitored everything. How did they… I don't know… poison Jimmy? How did we miss that?"

"I thought about that, too. And I think you know how and when. You just forgot, like I did… with… with everything that's happened. Think about it, Pepper. When was the only time we didn't have Howie with us or with family? When did he leave our sight?"

The redhead's eyes denoted she was deep in thought, forcing her mind to return to the days before their son had died – to recall the many tribulations they had gone through last December; all seemingly disconnected in the past, but suddenly not so much anymore once she really thought about them as a whole.

It had all started with her arriving to the penthouse late at night to find their home destroyed, and Tony and James protected inside one of the gauntlet's shields, both scared out of their skin. The next day, Tony had told her that he was dying of Extremis, and the search for a cure had begun. A week after Tony had come clean with her regarding his Extremis-related dilemma, the intruder had made its presence known to her in an unexpected way. It had stalked her while she had been in the shower, leaving her to mistakenly think it was no one other than her boy genius who was standing outside the clear-looking door, but she had almost immediately been proven wrong.

After that, they had both agreed to send their son away from the penthouse in the hopes that the intruder's presence was limited to their home, to the two of them. She and Tony had painfully sent James Howard Stark to live with the Rhodes, albeit just briefly, while the two of them figured out who was really behind the mysterious, uninvited guest in their turf. And the only day before the night she and Tony had gone out to dinner to celebrate her graduation from college, the only time they had been with their son before he had left this world, had been the day the three of them had gone to the Helicarrier to seek assistance with their bounty hunter investigation and with the rare happenings with their child.

Suddenly, it all made sense to her, just as it already made sense to him.

"_Are you sure your kid is strong?" Hawkeye asked, his tone one of utter disbelief, as he stared at the offspring of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark sitting on the work table in the middle of the large evidence room. The little guy had been brought over to the flying fortress by his parents for medical testing, and even the former criminal felt a twinge of pain for the baby boy. "He seems pretty normal to me."_

"_He does," Pepper played with baby James' little fisted hands. "But he's done some pretty amazing things. We think he's got his daddy's strength, at least at times."_

"_Well, he looks pretty babyish, if you ask me," Hawkeye replied as he too played with the toddler by tapping his nose. "Cute little guy, but I doubt he's the next Hulk."_

"_Can't hurt to check, right?" Tony asked, his back to the talking trio, while he stared at the many pictures of those who were on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watch list. He was not surprised to see War Machine, Rescue, and Iron Man on said list but, at this point, both he and Pepper were desperate enough to eat up their pride and ask Nick Fury for help. "When's your doctor gonna be ready to see us?"_

"_A few minutes," Clint said, picked up baby James in his hands, and began playing with him by lifting and lowering his arms in a uniform motion. "They're finishing up with one of our own who got injured during training. They'll be right up."_

"_Can we go in with him?" Pepper asked with a smile as she saw baby James's amused face and heard his giggles whenever Clint Barton lifted him in the air. "He can get a little fussy when people he knows aren't around."_

"_I'll ask the Docs," Barton responded and then chuckled when baby James began clapping in delight as the archer twirled around in place with him in the air. "Man! He must be a handful! I've never seen a kid put up with so much movement without starting to cry!"_

"_He has his moments," Pepper welcomed the baby into her arms once more when Barton finally handed him back. "But nothing that we can't handle by now."_

"_Good for you. I don't know if I could handle a super baby. Has he started to talk?"_

"_A few words," Pepper admitted. "Nothing special yet. I just wish he would call us Mom or Dad."_

"_What does he call you?"_

"_Ask him," Tony said and finally turned back to face Hawkeye, his son, and his wife._

"_What?"_

"_Just ask him who we are."_

"_OK," Barton shrugged. He then walked closer to the baby, grabbed his attention by holding his hand, and then pointed to Pepper with his free one. "Hey, James, who is that? Who is holding you?"_

_The baby's eyes went from staring at the archer, to looking at his finger, and then followed where the pointing led. When his blue eyes landed on his mother's, his smile widened and he opened his mouth._

"_Bep!"_

"_Bep?" Hawkeye chuckled. "He calls you 'Bep'?"_

"_Yup," Pepper said._

"_That's weird."_

"_It's better than what he calls Happy or Rhodey."_

"_Which is…?"_

"_Look," Pepper walked over to where Tony stood. She moved James closer to the large wall of pictures, found an image of James Rhodes, and then pointed to it. "Jimmy, who is that? Who is that in the picture?"_

_Just as before, the baby stared at his mother, then her finger, and then finally at the image on the wall. He playfully patted his mother's arm as he tried to reach over to grab the image of his adoptive uncle before he answered the question he had been asked._

"_Bro! Bro!"_

"_Bro?" Hawkeye asked, brows raised. "He calls him 'Bro.'"_

"_Yup," Tony said with a snort. "Rhodey said my kid was racially profiling him."_

"_HAHAHA! He might as well be! What does he call Happy?"_

"_Pi!" the child yelled, his finger unskillfully pointed at the image of the jock on the wall, who had earned his spot on the watch list due to taking over the mantle of Iron Man. _

"_Pi! Pi!"_

"_What about you, Stark? What does your son call you?"_

"_Not Dad, that's for sure," Tony said._

"_Jimmy," Pepper said and pointed to Tony. "Do you want to go with Daddy now? Do you want Daddy to carry you?"_

_The baby's smile was now complete, showing gums and all, and he stretched his hands toward his father. Pepper could not understand why, but whenever Tony was around and asked something of their son, the baby was more than willing to comply. It was as if their son had an innate need to please his father. If the toddler knew that saying "Dadda" rather than "Ony" would make Tony smile even more, she had no doubt that baby James would utter that word, all day long._

"_You want to go with Daddy?"_

"_O-ny," James said and wiggled his fingers towards his father. "Ony!"_

"_Fine, come're," Tony said, grabbed the baby, placed him on his forearms so that his head rested on his chest and shoulder, and the infant immediately held onto his father's shirt in his fisted hands. "But next time, you better call me: Dad, dude."_

"_Boom!"_

"_No, not boom!" Tony said with a shake of the head. "I said: dude!"_

"_Boom!"_

"_Ugh!" Tony rolled his eyes._

"_You guys make a lot of noise when you have sex or what?" Clint joked, although not completely, as it appeared that he had some experience in the matter at hand. _

"_What?" Pepper shrieked. "What the __**hell **__kinda question is that?"_

"_Well, I used to say that word, too, because I used to hear lots of booms when growing up. But in my case, it was the sound of my drunken dad beating up my mom."_

"_Uhm," Pepper cleared her throat. "I… I'm not sure what to say to that."_

_Hawkeye shrugged. "Just trying to explain your kiddos' weird words."_

"_It's Happy's fault for watching those darn videos of Iron Man missions when Howie's around," Tony readjusted baby James's position on his shoulder when it became obvious to him that the child was not comfortable and kept trying to move to the other shoulder. "I'm just grateful he's not saying porn-related words."_

"_Happy watches porn with your kid around?"_

"_I surely hope not."_

"_Well, he might be," Clint offered. "That'd actually explain all the words. Maybe he means to say horny when he says __Ony__, penis when he says __Pi__, and blow when he says __Bro__."_

_The looks on the heroes' faces denoted they were not amused by the conversation, but before they could verbalize their thoughts to the archer, the door to the evidence room slid open, revealing a tired-looking Maria Hill standing by the threshold._

"_Sorry about the wait," the woman quickly apologized. "We're ready for him."_

"_Can we go in?" Pepper asked as she watched her son make a strange, wave-like gesture at the wall over Tony's shoulder, almost like he was pointing at it and its many pictures. "We'd like to be there for all of it."_

"_Not a problem," Maria said, walked over to baby James, and massaged his head. "We have to decontaminate you too, though."_

"_It doesn't matter," Tony handed the child to the agent. "Where do we go clean up?"_

"_Hawkeye can lead you," Maria held the baby in her arms. "I'll take James to the medical unit to be sterilized for his presence in the lab. I'll meet you both there."_

"_OK," Pepper replied and then kissed her son's forehead. "You behave, Jimmy. Alright? Make Mommy and Daddy proud."_

"_Bep, Ony, boom!"_

"_See?" Clint said almost immediately, his finger taping the images of Pepper and Tony on the wall. "He can tell. Loud sex, you two."_

"_Barton, shut up," Hill said with a disapproving look that Pepper and Tony shared. Before anything else was said or done, the archer threw his hands in the air._

"_Just saying! I heard about the thing with the handcuffs! These two can be kinky as hell!"_

"_Let's just get this over with," Maria said as she exited the room, Pepper and Tony in tow. "And ditch Barton before you reach the lab."_

"_Off the Helicarrier or…" Tony asked and Pepper could not find it in her heart to chastise her husband for wanting to permanently quiet the archer._

"_From wherever you can find," Maria said and the redhead and the inventor snickered when the archer groaned aloud._

Pepper sighed loudly, covered her face with her hands, and then sunk in a chair. It was so obvious, so blatantly obvious now, when S.H.I.E.L.D. had been given the time to strike. They had handed them their kid, on a silver platter, for that matter, and it was not until now that they realized what they had done. Their son was dead not only because of S.H.I.E.L.D., but because they had unwillingly and unknowingly helped their cause.

"We didn't know, Pepper," Tony whispered to her when he saw tears forming in her eyes as she pulled her hands away from her face. He sat on the floor to hug her from the side. "We didn't know then."

"We should've known," she said after a sniffle. "We should've known better, Tony. We… we just…"

"I know. I know, Pepper. And now they want you. They already _have_ you, Pepper. I just know… I _know_ that the intruder who attacked you had to be from S.H.I.E.L.D. You're the next target and I… I can't just sit here and do nothing. I already lost Howie… I can't lose you, too."

The ginger closed her eyes, rested her forehead against the genius's head, and silence engulfed them for a long period of time. The only noises in the lab belonged to the beeping of machines, the humming of the computers, and the random sound of a chaste kiss or a tender word between them. After Pepper felt more in control of her anger towards what she had just learned, she finally pulled back from Tony, stood up from the chair, and walked over to the lab table to stare at the last unused vial of her blood – the one she now knew Tony had reserved to run the last test on her.

"Are you sure you want to run this test, Tony?" Pepper asked, vial in hand, eyes staring at the computer screen. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," Tony said without hesitation, uncertain of where the reluctance on her part was coming from, and stood to her left to stare at her almost vacant eyes. "I need to know, Pepper. I need to be ready."

"For what?" she stared back at him.

"What do you mean for what? To protect you!"

"From, what, Tony?" she insisted. "We… we knew Jimmy had Extremis in him, but we couldn't prove it. The test… it doesn't work. And if you run this test, and it comes back negative, does that mean I'm in the clear? Or does it mean that we don't really know how to detect Extremis on anyone other than in you?"

"What…" Tony swallowed hard. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," she began, turned to her left completely to stand before him, and held his face in her hands. "That if this test succeeds or fails, we won't know the difference. And that despite the results of it, and if S.H.I.E.L.D. really has already gotten me, then… then one day, Tony, one morning, you will wake up… but I won't wake up with you. Because… because there's nothing we can do to help me… just like there was nothing we could do for James. If S.H.I.E.L.D. wants me dead…"

"No," he closed his eyes and rested his hands on hers. "Don't say it, please…"

"Then…"

"Pepper, no…"

"I'm already on borrowed time."

When Dr. Bruce Banner walked inside, half an hour after being asked to leave for a few minutes, and he saw the couple embracing each other for dear life, the man lowered his head and sighed. He did not even bother to announce his presence; he just walked out of the lab one last time, but not before he saw that the last vial had been used to run the final test on the redhead that he knew the inventor had wanted to run. As he had expected, the results had come back negative. As he had been instructed, he sent a text message to S.H.I.E.L.D. to let them know everything was going according to plan. He wished there was another way, one that did not involve the demise of the hero couple, but even he knew that the stakes were too high to leave anything to chance.

The window of opportunity for creative thinking had come and gone. The only option now was to end their lives. At least, it would be more merciful this way.

xxxXXXxxx

_"What the FUCK were you thinking, Whitney?" Tony asked after his fists slammed on the only piece of furniture that kept some distance between his fuming, standing form and her frightened, sitting one. "What in the ACTUAL __**fuck **__were you thinking would happen if you killed her? You thought I'd automatically fall in love with you or forget her? You think it would make what happened to your father better, somehow? Are you __**that**__ fucking stupid?"_

_ "I-I… Tony… I don't know…"_

_ "Bullshit!" he hit the table again and then pointed at her with his left index finger. "You may have sold that sob story to Pepper, but not to me!"_

_ "It's not a story, alright?" Whitney partly screamed, partly sobbed. "I don't know what came over me! I'd never–"_

_ "Never, what?" he interrupted. "Never take someone against their will? Never torture them with anything and everything you could find? Never put them in a submarine in the middle of the fucking ocean and leave them for dead?"_

_ "Tony, that's not really fair…"_

_ "WHAT?" the inventor spat. "FAIR? Do you even know what that word MEANS?"_

_ "It wasn't me, Tony!" Whitney insisted. "It was the mask! I'd never do that to Pepper… to anyone! I know it was me, but it really wasn't! It was the mask!"_

_ "The mask only amplifies what you already feel, Whitney. You WANTED to hurt her. You wanted to take her away from me!"_

_ "Not like that!" Whitney said and stood up. "Yes, I was jealous! Yes, I didn't understand what you saw in her or why you kept her around but… but I never wanted to kill her."_

_ "And yet you almost succeeded. And you almost killed my dad, too. And me. But I'm supposed to believe that you're __**not**__ a killer, right?"_

_ "I don't…" she sighed, sat down again and looked away. "I don't know what you want me to say, Tony. I'm sorry. __**Really**__ sorry. I don't know how to make it right. I-I don't know how to make it up to you."_

_ "You can't," Tony replied, anger suddenly making his body feel exhausted enough to lower his voice. "There's nothing you can ever do to make it right. That day you took her, you took more than you know. You took years of her life away. You took years of my life away. You took the chance for us, for me and Pepper, to be together. You changed both of our lives, and a lot of people's lives, for the worst. You don't understand what you did. And you did it all because of what happened to your father. You just couldn't deal with the fact that your father cared about his money more than you, so you took the blame out on me, on Pepper, everyone else instead of facing up to your problems. I… I trusted you, Whitney. You were my friend. You were my friend, and you almost killed the woman I love."_

_ Whitney closed her eyes, hung her head in shame, and then remembered the conversation she had just had with the redhead before speaking again._

_ "Tony… you-you say that you loved her. You say you still do. Why aren't you with her, then? Why is she marrying someone else?"_

_ "Because of you," Tony deadpanned, his back now to the blonde while he stared at the very tempting exit of the interrogation room. "Because of what you did to her, I can never be with her. I can't let someone else harm her the way you did. She… she forgot about me for a while after we found her… she moved on… and now she's out of my reach. All thanks to you."_

_ The blonde opened her eyes again, stared at his back and then whispered her next words._

_ "I… I don't think that's true. I… I-I don't think she's out of your reach."_

_ Tony did not bother to look at her and simply scoffed, prompting Whitney to continue speaking her mind._

_ "I think," she cleared her throat, her voice not as weak as before. "I think miracles do happen. She survived the horrible things I did to her. She talked Gene out of leaving me where my mind was… and she forgave me. She came here to forgive me and make it better for me. To me, those are miracles. And if these things can happen… if all of THAT can happen, then she's not really out of your reach."_

_ Silence was all that was heard in the room for a moment after Whitney's statement while Tony remembered a similar conversation he had had with Rhodey, just months before, when Pepper had left him and had moved out of their apartment home. He had asked his friend what he needed to do to get Pepper back after he had screwed up with her, and Rhodey had given him a similar response. Just as it had been then, it was now again a reply he did not care for: a response that did nothing for him and his predicament._

_ "Miracles don't happen to me, Whitney."_

_ "They do," she replied, thinking of a couple of examples for him, herself. "You survived the plane crash. Your heart has been healed. Your father came back. Miracles do happen to you, Tony. You just have to be brave enough to call them what they are."_

_ Suddenly, all the angry words he had wanted to lash out at her with left him, and he saw no point in staying any longer. Nick Fury had been correct: it was pointless to yell at someone who did not yell back; someone who admitted their fault and fear. Someone who was trying to give him hope that he could be with Pepper again. The Madam Masque had committed the crimes, not Whitney Stane; and forever the inventor would have to live with the fact that there would be no one to take his anger out on. No one to truly blame for his screwed up life. He would just have to move on and let it go._

xxxXXXxxx

Tony closed his eyes and clenched his hands. He inhaled deeply and with lost hope as he listened to the man on the other end of the line explaining to him, in detail, the situation at hand. The more Doctor Ross spoke to the inventor, the more heartbroken Tony became. By the time the call was over, and after the double-beep signified the disconnection of the signal, the genius had nothing else to do but accept the reality of it all: the reality that Pepper had been correct; there was nothing to be done for her.

He finally opened his eyes and he lazily took off the surgical face mask he had been wearing for days. He also took off the sterilized gloves and the disposable, paper gown he wore on top of his clothes, only to discard them all inside a trashcan. He did not even bother to put any of these items in the hazardous material box – he knew there was nothing hazardous about what he had touched with them on his body. After taking off his wireless earpiece and tossing it on the living room coffee table, Tony Stark marched inside his and his wife's master bedroom in their home.

He was grateful for Pepper's decision to buy this place; it had a sense of homeliness for him. It was not their first apartment, or the Stark Solutions penthouse, or even the Stark Mansion, but there was something about the place he had called home for two years when living with Rhodey and his mother that spoke to him. If only he would have been able to share this with his son… and his wife. If only…

He found her where he had left her: on their bed, under the covers, her eyes closed, and breathing slowly. Her condition had been deteriorating exponentially for a week now. Every treatment and medicine that Doctor Ross had suggested had only managed to aggravate her symptoms. One medicine took care of one issue but caused two; weaning her off it made a new symptom pop up. He was not even sure if he could name all of the bottles of drugs he had gone through to try to make her feel better – they were too many to count. All he was sure about, however, was that Doctor Ross had just essentially told him over the phone that waiting for the inevitable was all that was left to do.

Making her comfortable until she took her last breath was the only course of action now.

As much as he hated to accept this – as much he hated the feeling of having nothing else to do but giving up, he knew the doctor to be right. They could not fight whatever she had, if they did not know what it was in the first place. The only person who would perhaps tell them what it was and how to cure it, would certainly not cooperate with them, he knew. No. At this point, Tony knew that Nick Fury would rather snatch out his one good eye than to help the redhead and the inventor overcome whatever advantage S.H.I.E.L.D. had over them. This was what Pepper and Tony had feared would happen. All that was left for them to do was figuring out a way for S.H.I.E.L.D. not to have the last laugh.

He crawled into bed with her, but he did so as quietly and slowly as possible so as not to disturb her. She smiled almost immediately when she sensed him near her; this was the only way he knew she was still conscious enough to acknowledge his presence. She hardly ever opened her eyes now, since it made her feel even more exhausted than she already felt – and not to mention nauseated. Even with the lights off and the curtains closed, the little light in the room bothered her. She did not speak much either, unless she absolutely had to, but thanks to years of knowing each other, most words did not need to be uttered anyway.

She frowned when she felt his arms surrounding her. She chanced opening one eye to stare at him questioningly, up and down, as much as she could from her laying down position on her side of the bed. One look to his sad-looking eyes and face was enough for her to understand what was going on. The mere fact that he was no longer trying to protect her immune system from his germs by wearing all those crazy gloves and outfits proved that she had finally reached a point of no return.

She gave him a small smile for his sake, leaned closer to his chest and ear, and then whispered to him in a soft voice.

"When I…" she began, but stopped when she could not bring herself to say the word _die_ to him. "When this is over, you're gonna kill Nick Fury for this, aren't you?"

"They wish," the inventor held her closer. He was not surprised that Pepper had picked up on the non-verbal cues of the bad news he bore, but he was surprised to see that she had accepted them much easier and faster than he knew he ever would. "The WSC will have to restart S.H.I.E.L.D. from scratch once I'm done with them, if they even find someone to rebuild their damned Helicarrier, anyway."

She closed her eyes again and gulped to find her voice once more. She then tried her best to hug him back to provide some type of comfort for him before she dropped a bombshell on him with her next words.

"Don't let them do this to me, Tony. Don't let _them_ be the ones who end it all for me."

"I…" his grip on her tightened, "I can't stop it, Pepper. I can't even slow it down. I want to, but I just don't know how. No one knows how."

"That's not what I said," she replied in a steady voice despite the tears forming behind her closed eyes. "Slowing it down or stopping it… that's not what I'm asking you to do for it... for me."

His eyes snapped open the moment he realized what her implication had been with her words. He then stared down to her serene face and relaxed form. When he was unable to form a coherent sentence, his redhead came to the rescue.

"You've done it before, Tony. I know you can do it again."

He closed his eyes to somehow physically show his rejection of her words, readjusted his position so that he was now resting the right side of his head on her chest, and he then held onto her hips as if he were a mere child who was being told he had to let go of his lifeless mother... all over again.

"It's not the same, Pepper. I can't do this to you. It's… it's just not the same."

The redhead, however, knew better than to believe his words of denial.

"_Because you shouldn't," he said and grabbed her hands. "You shouldn't give him up. We need to fight it, Pepper. We need to fight whatever it is that's screwing with us now. We can't give in. We can't give up. We can't live in fear all of our lives."_

"_But, Tony–"_

"_No," he began. "What if you give him up and then we have a kid of our own? Are you going to give him or her up, too? Are you also going to hide a baby – __**MY**__ baby, from me to keep it safe? When is it going to stop? Are we really going to let them win?"_

_Pepper closed her eyes briefly and, when she opened them again, his face was inches from hers. He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, her knuckles and spoke again. _

"_Do you really want to give him up? Is that really what you want?"_

"_No," she choked and shook her head. "No, I don't."_

"_Then you don't have to," he told her firmly. "I'll see to that, Pepper. I promised you – I __**swore**__ to you, that I wouldn't let anything happen to him, and I __**will**__ do anything I can to protect you and him. This baby is staying with us whether whoever sent those birds to kill him wants it or not. They're just going to have to kiss my iron ass if they think they can convince me otherwise. The SI board couldn't stop me. Stane and Hammer couldn't stop me. S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't stop me and the fucking Makluan couldn't stop me either. Whoever these assholes are, I want to see them try – no, I __**dare**__ them to try to hurt you or the baby. I will kill them, Pepper. I __**will**__ kill them when the time comes. Them and anyone else who tries to take you away. __**I'm not taking any chances**__."_

"It is the same," she responded after a brief silence, and before she slowly ran her fingers through his hair. "It'd probably be easier to do it on me than it was on those before. You… you told me once that you didn't know you had it in you… until you did it. You told me that you didn't regret it, remember? You told me you'd do it all over again, if your loved ones were in danger. You told me it got easier every time."

"On them," he replied. "On the ones who tried to hurt the people I love. It's… it's different to do it on the people you're trying to protect in the first place. Especially you."

"Are you saying you regret doing it all?"

"No," he said without pause. "I only regret the way I killed one of them… Rhona, actually. But when it comes to protecting you, Pepper, I regret nothing at all."

"Then protect me now," she opened her eyes to stare at the top of his head. "Be the one who ends it, not S.H.I.E.L.D. I… I can't do it myself… I don't have what it takes. I… I don't think I'll ever have what it takes to do this to anyone."

"I didn't think I did either," he slowly readjusted their positions one more time so that she was lying on her back and he was partly on top of her. "Until I heard Whitney tell me what she did to you…" he kissed her forehead. "Until I saw Ghost about to slit your throat…" he ran his lips down her neck. "Until Rhona told me about the bounty…"

"Until S.H.I.E.L.D. did this to our son and now to me," Pepper closed her eyes. "Until I asked you, just now, to not let S.H.I.E.L.D. be the one who has control over how and when I die."

"Pepper–"

"No," she breathed hard. "You have to do this for me, Tony. If you don't… if you let it happen on its own… S.H.I.E.L.D…. they win."

"They've already won," he deadpanned grimly before he crashed his lips on hers and kissed her as if there was no tomorrow since, quite literally, that could be the case for her despite how strong his current grip was around her form.

"For now, at least," he added when he paused the kiss only to stare at her eyes. "Until I deal with them myself, that is."

The redhead opened her eyes and lost herself in his blue ones, slowly taking in what he was saying without words. She relished the way he slid the back of his hand down her face and then back up to her hair. She enjoyed the soft contact of his fingertips on her slightly parted lips, and she could almost feel herself shiver in anticipation at the way his pupils suddenly dilated while staring at her. She knew the signs like the palm of her hand. She had seen him like this many times before. Even if she was disappointed by the fact that although she would try her best, her unnamed illness would not allow her to make it as memorable as she wanted this to be for him, she could not deny she looked forward to it, too.

"I'll do it," he whispered with ache, his loyalty to her stronger than the burning sting of finality in his words. "But not now or here. It'll be just the two of us, away from everything, secluded. It'll be just between you and me, like it should be."

Pepper nodded to him to show her thanks and then swallowed hard. "Where? When?"

"Not tonight," he began kissing her neck. "Tomorrow. I'll tell you… show you, tomorrow."

"Why tomorrow?" she closed her eyes.

"Why not?" he replied and she scoffed.

"Good point," she added after a pause, and then focused only in enjoying the rest of the night.

xxxXXXxxx

The myriad of papers with his signature on them on his desk were the only physical proof that he had broken his oath as a healer. He knew that said documents would never see the light of day as long as he kept his end of the bargain, and as long as his patient showed the promised results in not too long. He was not proud of what he had done, and he would not deny that he had done so under duress, but it was difficult not to commit crimes when you were between a rock and a hard place.

"This is the last of the tasks you wanted me to perform on her," Doctor Ross said as he signed the end of his forced contract with S.H.I.E.L.D. "I told Tony Stark that there was nothing else to do for her. They're just going to wait until the venom he unknowingly injected her with kicks in and she stops breathing."

"How long would that take?" Nick Fury asked from his position by the entrance of the doctor's private office. "We're running out of time."

"It's difficult to tell," Doctor Ross honestly replied, stacked all of the papers on top of each other, and then slid them across the desk and towards the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Her body has always been a mystery to us here. Her healing is as unpredictable as her mood swings are. She's surprised us one too many times for me to give you an actual deadline I can stick to."

"That's not what we agreed upon, Doctor."

"I didn't agree to any of this, General Fury. You took my wife to force me to do this! Short of putting a bullet in her brain, Pepper Potts's time of death will remain a question mark until it happens! I _can't _help you with that."

Nick pondered the doctor's answer for a moment as he considered his options which, at the moment, were close to none. Aldrich Killian had given him a very specific timeline to follow, and said timeline would begin its final course of action in two weeks' time. Maya Hansen and Kevin Kowalowski were in position as well, and if it had not been for Mitch Richards spilling the beans before it was time, his plan to disappear the Starks from the face of the planet would have worked, weeks ago.

Nick finally picked up the papers from the desk, put them back inside the folder he had brought them in, and then sighed derisively and without a hint of humanity at all.

"I guess that'll have to do for now. We'll release your wife the moment we get word that Pepper Potts has died, but not before then."

"That's not what you said you would do!" Doctor Ross screamed, stood up from his chair, and slammed the edge of his desk with his fists. "I've done everything you've asked me to do! It's been three weeks! Let my wife go!"

"If you keep pushing the issue, little man, you won't see her even if Pepper Potts dies. I needed her – _them_ – dead _months_ ago. You've proven to be as useless as everyone else that has tried to kill them before."

"If we're so useless," Doctor Ross began, his words filled with barely suppressed anger and frustration, "Then why don't _you_ kill them yourself? If you're so good at this, then why don't you just pull the trigger on them?"

"It's not my job to do," Nick replied. "My involvement in this matter of international security is beyond me calling a bounty off of them or failing to answer a call for help from them."

"What?"

"Forget it," Fury said and waved his hand dismissively at the scared doctor. "It's a matter beyond your understanding and your pay grade. I'll give you a call when it's time to pick up your wife. Stay near your phone."

"No, wait!"

"This conversation is over. Enjoy the rest of your day, Doctor Ross," Fury gave his back to the doctor on his way out of the office.

"But, you promised I'd see her!" Doctor Ross demanded. "You promised I would see my wife! When will I get to see her to make sure she's still alright?"

Fury shrugged, stared at the man over his left shoulder for a second to force him to stop his trek towards him, and then smiled with condescension before he finally replied.

"It's difficult to tell. The ways of torture and assassinations have always been a mystery to us in S.H.I.E.L.D. Your wife's threshold to pain is as unpredictable as her husband's inability to kill one single woman and man. You've failed me one too many times for me to give you an actual deadline I can stick to."

"You sorry son of a bitch," Doctor Ross snarled. "Tony Stark was right: you can't be trusted. You have to be stopped."

"Nobody can stop me, Doctor. I'm the head of the largest, most powerful crime-fighting organization. Nobody in this world can put a stop to my plans."

"Cancer will," the doctor deadpanned. "Your declining health will stop you if you're lucky… if Tony Stark doesn't get to you first. You think you know a man in rage, but you don't. You think you know what he will do once he finds out what you've done to her? You really have no clue. He will tear you apart. You and your flying ship, too."

"I'm counting on it," Fury said with a small smile as he opened the door. "That's been the plan all along."

"Has it?" Doctor Ross asked and took a step closer to the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Or has it been your _hope_? Tony Stark is not just one man. He's an institution. And he's not alone."

Nick Fury closed the door again, locked it, and then turned in place to stare at the clearly aggravated doctor standing before him. He eyed the medic up and down with a glint of respect in his eye, gave the man a polite nod, and then took out one of his many weapons from his trench coat.

"You're right," Fury said and pointed the gun at the man's chest. "He truly is not alone."

The pain in his chest was the last sensation Doctor Ross felt. The last thing he saw were the feet of the man that had weeks ago come to demand his help; the man who had come to his office, in the dead of night, to blackmail him to slowly kill Pepper Potts-Stark.

* * *

**A/N:** Sooo, uhm… I… errr… I got nothing… But, does it help if I say that the next chapter is worse? Does it? Does it? It only gets worse before it gets better! Who's with me? Who is with me? Who *gets attacked by evil Pepper*… Ugh, nevermind!

Leave a review! Thank you all for reading and reviewing, my Faithful Readers! You will make getting over this cold of mine that much easier for me!


	9. Chapter 8

**Guest Review Responses**

**Muah: Another great chap! Mockingjay was great! Ever considered writing hunger games fics? *wink wink* - **I have considered writing MJ fics and I'll probably do one later on in the future, but there are some AWESOME writers there already. It's kinda intimidating.

**Muah: Oh my god! Why you do this? – **Because I'm evil and have no heart! KIDDING! I'm not evil… much… sometimes… most of the time… :P

**Guest: ...I'm going to brake sth. Or someone. Please keep it up. – **One more horrible chapter and that's it for a while! Just one more and then it gets better quick, fast and in a hurry :D

**Someone: If I was bad enough to swear, I would...but I'm not... so... yeah... your saved from my angry review and caps this time (And this time only!)... cuz what I normally say in my angry reviews, doesn't fit in with how I feel -_- And then you say it's gonna get worse? I-I...I just don't know what to say... But I do need to say this: You know how PercyJacksonLover14 threw Brussels sprouts at you? (Yep! I didn't miss that, I sat down in my comfy bean bag with a bowl of popcorn...I have to say...PercyJacksonLover14 sure makes great movies!) well...if you don't want them...CAN I HAVE THEM?! I LOVE BRUSSELS SPROUTS! – **MUCH WORSE! IN THIS CHAPPIE! But it also gets LOTS better in the Epilogue. Just bear with me :D And you can have the Brussel sprouts. I think she's gonna throw something much worse at me after this chapter. Probably a rabid dog or something.

**Toni: "We're running out of time." ? I'm shocked. Pepper dying. Fury being unforgivably evil. Wish you'd make it better now. I have no idea what's going on and it has left me feeling confused as to why. I don't want Pepper to die, but I don't see how they'll make it out of this okay. – **I'll make it better in the Epilogue, can't say that enough. And about Pepper… well… spoiler alert: she HAS to die :(

**apps: I am not happy!** – Oh, crud! This chapter is probably not gonna make you any happier. Just try to stick through it to the epilogue, and then it should be better. Please…? :'(

* * *

**Chapter 8: August**

Last month, the couple had not been able to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. In March, they had not been able to celebrate James' first birthday. In May, they had barely had any chance to celebrate Tony's birthday. And this time next year, Tony suspected, neither he nor Pepper would be around to celebrate anything else if whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. had planned for them eventually came to fruition. He had already prearranged this getaway, months ago, and today he was glad that he had made the entire vacation plan a reality, even if Pepper was now mostly tied to the _Pep Ride_ – even if just to see the look of surprise on his wife's face. Just as it was the case at the moment.

"An island?" Pepper asked for the third time since they had landed on an unsettled piece of land – _her_ unsettled piece of land. She had somewhat expected Tony to bring them back to the Bahamas when he said that they would be taking the jet to travel, but she had not expected their private yacht to be waiting for them at the bay to pick them up and take them across the sea.

"You-you bought me an island?"

"Yup," Tony said with pride. "I told you this is what I do for a serious date, remember?"

"Yeah," she shook her head at the memory of that particular conversation between them in Central Park. "But I think I also remember saying I could buy my own island if I wanted to."

"But you haven't," he pointed out and began walking back to the Stark yacht for their luggage. "You bought a house."

"Actually, that was for you," Pepper admitted and followed his movements with her eyes. "The property title has your name on it."

"Well," Tony said once he came out of the ship with several bags in hand. "This island's title has your name on the paper."

Pepper opened her mouth to retort, but when she acknowledged that she had nothing meaningful to add to the conversation – the land had already been bought and paid for – she decided to just let her exotic husband be his extravagant self.

"How do you even buy an island, these days?"

"You have a last name of Stark."

"It was rhetorical, Tony," she rolled her eyes and he simply shrugged.

"It's a shame we didn't plan this together, because we could've put my house on your island, and we wouldn't have to camp on the beach while we're here."

"We're camping?"

"We could," he said with another shrug, and then dumped the bags on the sand, causing the white, extremely soft and fine dust to briefly lift in the air. "Or I could've asked if you even wanted to camp before I brought down these heavy bags."

"Or you could've asked–" her right hand suddenly went to her chest, her head hung, and she began gasping for air. "Jonas… to… to… help…"

"Pepper!"

Tony ran towards her and towered over her while she sat on the _Pep Ride_. He rubbed her back and waited for the redhead to breath in enough oxygen to continue their conversation, all the while Tony thought about how it was a miracle in and of itself that she had survived the cabin pressure change while flying here from their home. All he wanted at the moment, however, was for her to remain alive long enough to enjoy a few days in the tropical paradise he had gotten for her. He just wanted her last days to be the best ones she could possibly have, even if she did not make it to her birthday, this time around.

Every time she lost her breath in the middle of a sentence, it took longer and longer for her to recuperate. And every time this had happened to her since their _rendezvous_, two days ago, the more his resolve expanded regarding what he was going to do to S.H.I.E.L.D. once Pepper was gone. Turning back on Extremis in himself was going to be step one. Using it to learn everything about S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to be step two. Pinpointing all the locations of the organization throughout the world was going to be step three. Locking up Rhodey in a safe location would become step four, and then going on an unstoppable rampage to take down the worldwide association would be his final task – that along with taking Nick Fury down himself, alone, while he told the one-eyed man why his death sentence was being carried out in the first place and by him.

_All in good time._

It took Pepper a couple of minutes to regain composure. Once she did, she patted Tony's arm to let him know she was going to be alright – at least until she lost her breath again for speaking too fast.

"Jonas," she continued, but this time spoke slower than before. "You should've asked Jonas to help you before you decided to leave him in the Bahamas with the jet."

"It's alright," he shrugged again. "I can put them back inside the yacht. Besides, the poor man flew us here on a very short notice. Least we could do for him is to let him enjoy his time on vacation while he waits on us to be done."

"I guess you're right," Pepper agreed. "But before we decide to camp here, shouldn't we map out the place first? It's gonna be extremely dark when the night falls."

"True," Tony replied and took out his pod. "I haven't had the chance to do much with it other than make sure it was not populated by dangerous animals or plants. The rest remains unexplored."

"That's a head start," the redhead stated. "I don't know about the rest of it, but everything here by the beach is beautiful."

"That's the idea," he said with a proud smile. "I wanted to give you something that'd make you happy. And that was before we even knew… before we accepted that… that you will… well…"

"I know," she said in what she hoped was a calming voice, and then lost herself in the natural wonders before her. "It's perfect, Mr. Stark."

"Only the best for the Missus," he replied and then took a moment to enjoy the view while he stood next to her.

The first selling point of the deserted location had been its proximity to the Bahamas, a place that was incredibly significant to them both. It was almost unbelievable to Tony that, little over a year ago, he and Pepper had walked down the aisle a few miles from their current location. He had even seen said island from the plane when they had landed in the Bahamas a year ago, but it had not been until recently that he had even considered inquiring about the possibility of buying the piece of land.

The second selling point had been the great location of it. It was far away enough to provide privacy and a sense of the two of them being the only people left in the world, but it was also close enough to civilization should they needed to grab a bite to eat, seek medical attention, or simply craved a real toilet and clean water. The yacht would serve as their indoor plumbing miracle for now, but had they had the chance to further explore the island and spend more time on it, the yacht would have not served them as well in the long term.

The other option had been to build a real house on the island itself, but Tony had not wanted to plan ahead that much. It had always been his intention to let the ginger do whatever she wanted with the place, and he had wanted to leave it as close to its natural state as possible until she gave the word. The point was moot now, anyway. After Pepper finally said goodbye to this world, Tony would soon follow her once he took care of those who had brought harm to his family for the past few years. If he was going to go down, just as they had promised themselves before, they would take everyone down with them.

"Tony?" she stared at him from the corner of her eye. "Is this the _when_ and _where_?"

It took him a second to understand what she had just asked him, but once he knew what she had meant, all he could do was nod. It had been just two days ago that Pepper had asked him to be the one to end her life for her, and he had agreed to do just that. It was now – a day after they had visited their son's grave, that the redhead was entitled to the answers of those two questions she had asked in the past.

_"I'll do it," he whispered with ache, his loyalty to her stronger than the burning sting of finality in his words. "But not now or here. It'll be just the two of us, away from everything, secluded. It'll be just between you and me, like it should be."_

_ Pepper nodded to him to show her thanks and she then swallowed hard. "Where? When?"_

_ "Not tonight," he said to her and began kissing her neck. "Tomorrow. I'll tell you… show you, tomorrow."_

_ "Why tomorrow?" She closed her eyes._

_ "Why not?" He replied and she scoffed._

_ "Good point," she added after a pause._

He _had_ promised to tell her about it yesterday, but he had opted to push it back another day.

"I'm glad I waited," she said with a smile and then grabbed his left hand. "It's the best place for it, too, I think."

"I'm sure there's something prettier deeper into it," he replied, almost absentmindedly, trying to ignore the fact that he knew exactly what his wife was talking about.

"Why don't we find out?" she offered.

"Really?" he asked, a single eyebrow raised. "Don't you want to rest first? We just got here."

"I'll have plenty of time to rest later," she said despite the grim implication of her words. "Right now, I just want to spend time with you exploring my island."

"Your island you're gonna rename before it's all over, right?"

"Perhaps," she said with a shrug and then extended her arms toward him. "Piggy back ride?"

"Of course," he said with a smile of his own and helped her move from the _Pep Ride_ onto his back. Even without his super strength, he had always been able to carry her rather easily. Now that she was losing weight again, she was nearly light as a feather for him.

"Hold on tight, Pep."

"As long as it's with you," the ginger replied, rested her chin on his right shoulder, and made sure to surround his upper arms with her arms while not restricting his motion. On his end, Tony held onto her dangling legs by wrapping his arms under and around them, and kept himself from falling into the temptation of tickling the skin there. He then took his time leaving the beach and entering the thick foliage of the rest of the land, stopping only when he noticed the redhead admire a particular part of the trek.

Just as he had suspected, varied vegetation and fauna littered the place, but no other human soul except theirs was around. In between some of the small hills that surrounded the location, they found creeks, caves and even a small lagoon – a place where she asked for them to stop for now to enjoy the view up close.

"It's so quiet around here," she whispered, almost afraid of breaking the peacefulness of the scene. "It's so incredible to me to know that places like these still exist, considering how busy everything is back in New York."

"I know what you mean," he helped her rest her back against his chest. He had opted to rest his back against a tree for support, had placed the ginger in between his bent legs, and he now surrounded her upper torso with his arms. She felt so comfortable in his embrace like this, and if it were up to the inventor at all, he would have frozen this moment in time forever.

_Frozen in time_, he thought for a moment when Pepper busied herself closing her eyes and resting as well, the sweet lullabies of the birds nearby inviting her to sleep. His fingers ran up and down her skin. His lips brushed against the top of her head. But his mind was miles away, years ago, thinking back to the moment they had met in a different kind of jungle to the one they were in today.

They were still to have their first official date he had wanted them to have when young, and now he would only have a few days to make it happen for her. It was part of the reason why he had brought her here, to give her the moments and memories he was yet to provide to her. He would not be able to do for her everything he had always wanted them to be and have, but he at least wanted her last memories to be a pleasant contrast of what their lives had been so far.

"I love you, so much," he closed his eyes. "I wish there was a way for me to show you how much is _so much_."

"I think you've shown me that, many, many times, in so many different ways. You'll show me even more, very soon. In fact," she chuckled bitterly, "If push came to shove, Tony, I wouldn't be able to do for you what you'll do for me. So I think that, in a way, you _do_ love me more than I love you."

"I think you would be able to," he kissed the top of her head, partly surprised at how nonchalantly they spoke about such a grim topic. "Even if just to defend yourself, I'm sure you'd hurt me to save your life. We all have limits, Pep."

"Not even then, I don't think," she sighed and opened her eyes. "Nick Fury was right on that. If it came to you going rogue, I'd be the first one you'd kill because I'd be the only one that wouldn't fight back like I should in that situation."

Tony furrowed his brow and opened his eyes as well.

"He _told_ you that?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "When he arrested you for the Rhona issue and I went looking for you at the Helicarrier. He said… he said that he had to keep you there because he couldn't guarantee my safety otherwise. He said you were so unstable that you would kill me on the spot if you wanted to."

"He's full of shit."

"That's what I thought."

"Like I'd ever hurt you."

"I know. That's what I said."

"And even if I did… with the exception of this time… except when the time comes…"

"Yeah?"

"I mean," he exhaled. "It doesn't matter now, but if it had happened, Pepper. If I had lost my mind enough to hurt you… I… I trust you'd do whatever it takes to defend yourself. Even from me. _Especially_ from me, actually."

"Didn't you hear what I just said? I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it. I know I talk a lot, and I always say that I'd put on the armor and kick anyone's ass, but to you – to my family. I… there's no chance – no way in hell, I can ever do that. No matter how mad I am. No matter if my life is in danger."

"What about someone else's? How about Howie's?" he asked and she froze. "What if Howie was still alive and I wanted to hurt him? Would you attack me then?"

"I-I… I don't know."

"I would expect you to. I wouldn't want to survive that. I'd rather be dead than to be the one who brings him harm. Even if, well… even if I kinda already did by not realizing what was happening in front of me. Even then, I, well… I… I'd rather die knowing that you killed me to save yourself, Pepper, than to live knowing I was the one to... to..."

"But Tony," she closed her eyes once more. "You _are_ going to–"

"Because you asked me to," he did not want to hear her say it. "And because I don't have to live with it for long. If we had another choice, I'd take it. If you weren't giving me permission and I did it, I'd hate myself forever."

"Which is why I wouldn't be able to do it to you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, either."

"Unless I gave you permission, which I have. Again, not that it matters anymore, but you could have always repulsor blasted me to hell if I'd laid a finger on you with the intention to harm you. It was always an option, Pep."

The redhead opened her eyes again, but only to grab his arms and hold on to them against her chest. She silently prayed that he would be able to carry out his final mission, and that he was able to find peace with it before too long. That would be her only regret after leaving this world: knowing that the possibility existed that Tony would never move on from doing to her what he had done to his enemies. That he would not make amends with himself before he took on S.H.I.E.L.D. on his own.

"I never thought it would end like this," she admitted, her body suddenly very tired. "I always thought we would grow old together, arguing about how you were too frail to put on the suit and fight."

"And I thought I would have to hide all jetpacks from you so that you wouldn't be able to leave me, ever."

The light chuckles that emanated from them soon turned into full bouts of laughter as they both pictured in their minds the comical images of an old Tony trying to put on the suit of armor while holding a walking cane and an oxygen tank, and an old Pepper trying to activate a jetpack by turning on a toaster in a stranger's kitchen. Tears of laughter followed as well, and when the silence finally surrounded them once more and reality hit them again, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts remembered that the next few days on Earth would be their last; camping near a lagoon on a deserted island suited them just fine.

xxxXXXxxx

She woke up when she felt she could not sleep anymore. She had been trying to avoid resting too much while the countdown of her last hours on the planet came near its end, but it had become increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. She had tried to hide it from Tony, how exhausted she truly felt, but hours ago, she had been unable to keep up the charade and had finally passed out.

She stared at her pod to realize she had been conked out for nearly four hours, and that the side of the sleeping bag that belonged to Tony was cold. She was not even sure when she had fallen asleep, or even if he had napped with her. The last thing she remembered was the two of them sitting by the lagoon, talking about everything and nothing. Next thing she knew, she was waking up in their makeshift bed.

There was no doubt that the inventor had carried her back inside their tent, but she had no idea what he had done with himself in the time she had been asleep. She could only hope it was not something similar to what he had done the last time she had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, as he had spent two hours listing how he was going to make the World Security Council, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Nick Fury pay.

She was aware that she had very little influence on the matter, on what Tony did after she was gone, but she wished and prayed that amidst the chaos he was planning to unleash on those who had wronged him, that he found the time to forgive himself. She knew that he felt responsible for her impending death, just as he felt responsible for baby James's untimely demise. If anything were to go her way after she died, she hoped that it would be for his soul to free itself from the burden of guilt.

She did not need to look outside to know that the night had fallen. The darkness inside the tent was a good enough indicator that Tony would be coming back inside the tent soon to sleep. The man had been staying up with her as much as he could, taking in any moment he could get out of her, but she could see that it was wearing him out as well. Without Extremis in him for so long, his human limitations were starting to show. It brought tears to her eyes that, even when he knew what the outcome would be in the end, he was still trying to treat this as a vacation, or as much as he could make it to be.

Tonight was their last night together – they planned to be inducing her passing the next day. When she stood up from the sleeping bag, she took a step outside the tent. It was then that she realized that Tony was not going to let the prospect pass to make it a night she would never forget, even after life.

She held back a gasp when she saw the fire he had built near the tent. It was not so much that she had never seen a fire in the wild before, but it was the fact that it was not a usual color: the large, vivid flames were purple and silver – just as her Rescue outfit was. The tent had been moved from the lagoon to the beach once more (she could have sworn she had fallen asleep near the small body of water). And once her eyes began taking in the rest of the scene, she felt momentary regret for giving up on trying to save her life.

But she knew that there was nothing else to do – at least not anymore. They had already tried everything. Spoken to everyone (except S.H.I.E.L.D., whom they still believed had caused this). But nothing had worked. In fact, their attempts at healing her had only made her condition worsen.

The ground beneath her bare feet was littered with petals of different flowers she assumed were native to the island, the myriad of their colors contrasting perfectly with the blank canvas of the silky, white sand. The sound of the waves hitting the shore and rocks nearby reminded her of their first apartment by the Hudson River, and she again felt remorse; this time, for not ever spending some quality time at the bay they had lived in for nearly two years, many eons ago.

Had it really been_ that_ long? Had she and Tony performed the tiresome and time wasting back-and-forth dance of getting together and splitting up, for these many years? Why, in the name of all that was good on this fucking planet, had neither of them realized sooner that life was infinitesimally short? Why did tragedy after tragedy have to occur for them to realize how good they had it together – how miserable they were when apart?

_It doesn't matter now_, Pepper told herself in silence while she observed the last rays of the sun disappearing on the horizon. _Tomorrow morning, nothing we ever did or didn't do will matter. I'll be gone forever, and Tony will be all alone. I'll be leaving him behind._

At least until they met in the afterlife, if there even was such a thing; and she hoped that there was. Perhaps, even their son would be there.

Even though her heart was breaking into a million pieces that would soon be washed into the ocean, she found it in her soul to smile. Tony had obviously gone to great lengths to make this time memorable for her, and the least she could do for him was to enjoy it as much as she humanly could. It was not the fact that he had bought her an island. It was not the fact that he had been pampering her 24/7. It was the simple things, such as using science to change the color of the fire to colors she loved, that made her want to show her immense gratitude to him.

She closed her eyes when she caught a whiff of the scent of lavender and another intermingled aroma she could not identify but already enjoyed, and before she opened her eyes again, she felt a set of arms embrace her upper body from behind, softly pinning her arms under it. She did not have to open her eyes to identify his cologne, and when he pressed his body behind hers and began slowly swaying their bodies together from side to side, the ginger knew what he had in mind for tonight.

The music in the background began playing slowly, almost inaudibly so, but since it was just the two of them for miles and miles around the small piece of land, she could hear the faint sounds of a gently building melody she loosely remembered she had once heard playing in Tony's lab, but to which she had not paid much attention. The lyrics took a moment to appear, and by the time the first verse was echoing in their own small world, the inventor had begun sliding his nose and lips up and down the left side of her neck, humming the tune with leisure and whispering random parts of the stanzas to her ear.

_Still feels like our first night together  
__Feels like the first kiss, it's gettin' better, baby  
__No one can better this...  
__Still holdin' on, you're still the one_

He half-turned her in place until she was facing him, each other's eyes finding the other's lips rather than their gazes and remaining there. He held her by the waist again, although only by the sides and under her blouse this time; his thumbs on the front and the rest of his fingers on her back, all five tantalizing the skin there. He pulled her to his chest, still not acknowledging anything other than the words of the song he had chosen for tonight, and he then pressed the left side of his face against her right side.

_First time our eyes met, same feelin' I get  
__Only feels much stronger, wanna love you longer  
__You still turn the fire on...  
__So if you're feelin' lonely ‒ don't  
__You're the only one I ever want.  
__I only wanna make it good  
__So if I love you a little more than I should..._

"Please forgive me. I know not what I do," he sang into her ear, and his breath and tone made her skin crawl. "Please forgive me. I can't stop lovin' you."

_Don't deny me, this pain I'm going through..._

"Please forgive me," he continued with the playing of the lyrics and kissed her cheek before continuing the song. "If I need you like I do."

_Please believe me, every word I say is true...  
__Please forgive me I can't stop loving you_

Taking advantage of the short break in lyrics, Tony leaned down to her face and kissed her long enough for the music-only portion of the song to end. He then pulled back his face and stared deeply into her eyes as the song continued.

_Still feels like our best times are together.  
__Feels like the first touch, still gettin' closer, baby  
__Can't get close enough.  
__Still holdin' on, you're still number one_

"I remember the smell of your skin," he again ran the tip of his nose down her face. "I remember everything. I remember all your moves," he smirked playfully at that. "I remember you, yeah! I remember the nights, you know I still do."

_So if you're feelin' lonely ‒ don't  
__You're the only one I ever want.  
__I only wanna make it good  
__So if I love you a little more than I should...  
__Please forgive me ‒ I know not what I do.  
__Please forgive me ‒ I can't stop lovin' you  
__Don't deny me, this pain I'm going through.  
__Please forgive me if I need you like I do  
__Oh, believe me ‒ every word I say is true.  
__Please forgive me ‒ I can't stop loving you._

When the bridge of the song began playing, Tony lifted his redhead from the ground and made it so that she had no option but to cling onto him. Her arms surrounded his neck, her head ended slightly towering over his, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He secured her stance by holding her lower back firmly against him, and he began alternating between kissing her and singing the song to her.

"One thing I'm sure of, is the way we make love. And one thing I depend on, is for us to stay strong. With every word and every breath I'm prayin'. That's why I'm sayin'..."

The redhead listened to the rest of the lyrics, tears running down her cheeks while the inventor began slowly directing her to a blanket he had laid on the sand. This was the best way to spend her last day on Earth, and she had Tony to thank for it – just as she always did and always had.

xxxXXXxxx

_Rain, rain: go away.  
__Come again another day._

The sudden dip the Stark jet took woke up the inventor from his deep slumber. As his eyes snapped open, another more pronounced dip made his senses become fully alert. The abrupt movement made some of the items in the aircraft fall onto the floor from the shelves in the small bedroom located at the back of the plane, and the blue-eyed boy had to fight for stability himself as well.

"Shit."

He rubbed his face with his hands, stole a glance at Pepper lying next to him on the mattress, and then stood up from the bed, balancing himself as much as possible amidst the now constant up-and-down of the craft. The end of their _vacation_ had been cut short due to an incoming tropical storm; leaving before it fell had been the only choice to avoid being stranded on the island. It now appeared, however, as if the storm had followed them anyway, and it was attempting to further disturb their plans.

Everything had been ready for Tony to deliver the final blow to his redhead near the lagoon, but Jonas had shown up unexpectedly to warn the duo about the storm. After much deliberation, Tony and Pepper had decided to alter their plans. They had called it quits on their getaway, leaving them to relocate the place and time to use Tony's own version of a lethal injection on the redhead to their own home. It bought him more time with her, he had selfishly thought, and it also saved him from a headache when it came to transferring the body back home.

The body; _her_ body. He still could not believe he was going to kill his own wife.

Wobbling and grabbing onto whatever was nearby, Tony exited the small bedroom area and joined the common room that separated the cockpit from the bedroom. He strained his eyes to try to see anything past his own body, but the only light that was currently present came in the form of sporadic lightning bolts hitting outside. Everything seemed eerily quiet inside the jet despite the roaring storm, and just when he thought that his ears had been deceiving him when he had first woken up, he heard the same, vaguely familiar voice sing again.

_Rain, rain: go away.  
__Come again another day._

For an instant, the billionaire wondered if Pepper was playing tricks on him, but the voice did not sound feminine at all. Moreover, the redhead could barely speak when they had left the island, hours ago, and he doubted she wanted a stupid prank to be the last thing she did while alive. He was aware that she knew how difficult this situation was for him already; pranking him with creepy songs in the middle of a stormy night simply did not fit her style.

_Rain, rain: go away.  
__Come again another day._

Tony narrowed his eyes and tried to follow the voice to find its origin, but the overlapping sounds from the outside made it difficult to pinpoint what noises belonged to the storm, which ones to the jet, and which to his own jittering innards. The shaking of the jet was only worsening by the minute, making it practically impossible to tell which way was up and which way was down, and he eventually realized he did not care enough to find out more about the voice. After a few seconds of deliberation, Tony abandoned his search for the owner of the creepy singsong voice and opted to make a beeline for the cockpit to speak to his aviator instead.

"Jonas," Tony began as soon as he slid the door open and stuck his head inside. "What the _hell _is going on?"

"Storm, sir," the old pilot replied in his heavy Texan accent, his eyes staring directly into the darkness of the pelleting water on the glass. "Sneaky, little cotton picker t'rned 'round at the last second. She's right be'ind us."

"How close is it to us?"

"I reck'n close enough for ya'll to want to say your Hail Mary's and the Lord's Prayer, but far 'nough away to be gone faster than my cousin Wanda can empty a bucket of biscuits."

"And," the inventor narrowed his eyes, "How fast, do you reckon, can your cousin Wanda acquire diabetes from that bucket?"

"About half an hour, sir. You and the Missus gonna be a'right?"

"Think so. Pepper hasn't even been woken up by it."

"Ya don't say? With all this ruckus?" Jonas replied. "She naps like my cousin Rudolph did when he was run over by his tractor, may he rest in peace."

"What do you mean?" Tony took a step back, his heart rate suddenly rising at the suggestion of Jonas's words.

"I mean that the Missus musta have some real heavy sleeping habits! I've had to adjust the cabin pressure _twice_. Made my ears pop like a badly prepped chicken in the ov'n."

"I felt that," Tony stated as he recalled that he had briefly woken up to rub his ears when they had hurt for no apparent reason. He had gone back to sleep almost immediately after it, and had not thought much about it until now.

"Alright, Jonas," Tony said with finality. "I'll leave you to it."

"Alright, sir. You sit tight. We'll be out of it 'fore you know it."

"Thanks."

Tony closed the sliding door to the cockpit, and then turned around to stare at the common area once more. Every electronic device in the room was off, save for an alarm clock radio he had left there to not be disturbed by it in their room. The bright red numbers bled into the pitch dark room, almost calling out to him, daring him to pick it up. He took one step forward, stopped when the jet shook again, and then resumed his pace towards the clock when the turbulence was not as prominent. When he had the alarm clock in his hand, he heard the song one more time.

_Rain, rain: go away.  
__Come again another day._

The song was definitely coming from the radio speaker on the side of alarm clock – as was the time. But the device was disconnected.

"How the hell?"

The inventor double-checked that the alarm clock was unplugged from the outlet. He knew for a fact that it did not contain any batteries – there was not even a place to store any. He shook the device a few times, held it to his right ear, and heard the song again.

_Rain, rain: go away.  
__Tony Stark dies today._

Tony dropped the clock radio immediately and ran toward the bedroom.

"Pepper!"

He did not even bother to close the door behind him; his only goal to kneel on the floor on her side of the bed. The redhead was yet to move an inch from where she had been lying when he had first left the room, and when the words of his pilot regarding the ginger's sleeping habits returned to him, Tony's eyes filled with tears.

"Pepper. Pepper, please wake up. Pepper, please. _Please_…"

But the woman did not move. She did not even flinch. In fact, she was not even breathing at all.

"NO!"

He pulled and threw the covers to the floor, crawled on top of the bed, and cradled her limp upper body in his arms. His hands were shaking as he moved away strands of red hair on her face. When his warm skin felt the clammy coldness of her body, Tony Stark began to sob. It was just as when he had found her in that submarine thanks to Gene's help, cold and sweaty and unconscious, but she had been alive then. Today, he had no such luck.

"Pepper," he said between cries of pain. "Pepper, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Once again, S.H.I.E.L.D. had won. S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken his son in his sleep, and it had now also taken his wife while she lay next to him. He had failed her. He had failed to be the one who took her life away, just as she had asked of him, and forever it would be known that Nick Fury and his pack of puppet-like agents had the last laugh. Pepper Potts-Stark was dead by their hand. _His_ Pepper was no more.

"Pep," he pressed his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry, Pep. I… I wasn't fast enough. I… I… I should've–"

The jet shook for the nth time, but Tony no longer cared if they braved their storm or not. He had two backup suits of armor in the closet of their room. If worse came to worse, he would put one of them on Jonas for him to make his escape, and he would then take the other to get himself and Pepper's body out of the plane.

_Her body_, he clenched his eyes and teeth. _Her body… because she's dead!_

Their safety no longer concerned him. His vengeance did.

He kissed her face all over, whispered to her how much he loved her, and apologized a million times for letting her down, even in death. He simply could not believe how unexpected it had been, how unprepared he truly had been for it, despite how much he knew it had been coming all along. His redhead, his friend, his wife – his beloved – was now far away from his reach. Farther than she had been when she had been kidnapped by Whitney. Farther away than she had been when she had woken up after almost dying, not knowing who she was and not knowing him. Farther than all the other times her life had been in danger because of him.

"Pepper," he said after a sniffle. "I'll take care of S.H.I.E.L.D. for you. This promise I won't break. This… I… Pepper…"

His voice suddenly betrayed him, but what more was there to say? They had spent the last three days in each other's company, telling and showing each other how much they meant for one another. He had given her a relaxing place to live for a few days. He had given her that camping first-date he had always wanted to provide for her. They had made love under the stars, on the beach and near a fire, and he had sung to her while dancing their last song together. What more could he had done for her? What more could he have said to her?

_I could've saved you_, he told himself. _I could've barged into S.H.I.E.L.D. and demanded a cure… I could've saved your life instead of giving up! I could've traded my life for yours!_

His life for hers.

Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda.

It was over now.

Tears still streaming down his face, Tony carefully placed the redhead to rest in the middle of the bed. He combed her hair with his fingers, laced her hands on top of her stomach, and then covered her body up to her chest with the blanket he had previously thrown on the floor. He adjusted the pillows under her head even though he knew it did not make any difference, kissed her lips one last time, and took a step back to stand by the foot of the bed. He stared at his ginger's motionless form for a moment, closed his eyes after an instant, and then hung his head, ashamed that he was not sure how to proceed now.

What else was there to do? He could not call his family for it yet; they had agreed that he would wait until her body was back at home to relay the news to everyone. No one knew of Pepper's health issue; they hardly knew or understood Tony's as it was, so neither of them had seen any point in worrying their families for what they could not do anything about: for what they had a difficult time believing and understanding themselves.

Perhaps Jonas would like to say a prayer for her? Perhaps the man knew what the religiously-appropriate procedure for a recently deceased person was? The inventor himself did not know any holy rites, and even if Pepper had not actively sought out to fulfill the doctrinaire details of organized religion, the genius was aware that she had once in a while relied on the spiritual support provided by theological faith to find strength in times of need. All he had ever relied upon other than science was her, and she was not there to support him anymore.

She was gone. As quickly as she had come into his life, she was gone. Just as his son had left him, too.

When he opened his eyes again, he realized that he was no longer alone. He could not immediately tell who it was, but from the corner of his right eye and his current erect position by the foot of the bed, he could tell someone was standing outside the door of the bedroom. The lights were yet to come back on inside the jet, and the storm was yet to calm down one notch, but the presence near him was as overpowering as his need to have Pepper back in his life the instant he had realized she had died in her sleep.

Tony knew of only one person to have such a heavy aura – heavy enough for someone such as himself, a person who relied on science, to feel it burning his skin. He had actually not heard from him in a while, so his presence in his jet was as unexpected as the fact that he was not in his human form but in his full fighting getup.

"Gene," Tony half-turned to his right to face the armored man. "You're too late," he wiped tears from his face. "She's gone."

"I'm not here for that," Mandarin replied after a brief second of silence and Tony frowned at how cold the Mandarin's tone sounded. Had Gene even been aware that Pepper was dying? How did he even know she was now dead? How did he even know where to find them, in the middle of the ocean, for that matter? Had Pepper called him before she had died? Had she texted him before she took her last breath? Was Gene here to make sure Tony carried out his promise to her of avenging her death?

_No_. _She promised she wouldn't tell anyone. Not even Gene._

Tony's eyes landed on his redhead for a second. When he returned his attention to the Mandarin, he realized that his hands were glowing so brightly that they almost blinded him. He then noticed that pieces of the radio that had scared the shit out of him, just minutes before, were lying on the floor of the jet by the Mandarin's feet.

"Gene," Tony gulped and took a step towards the common area as he tried to shield his eyes with his left hand from the increasingly bright light coming from Gene's armored fists. "What are you doing here?"

Gene did not immediately respond, but he did raise his right palm and aimed it towards a shocked billionaire, making Tony stop in his tracks.

"Gene," the genius insisted. "_What_ are you doing here?"

This time, Gene Khan did verbally respond, and the moment his answer left his lips, Tony knew what was to come. He _finally_ pieced together Nick Fury's ultimate plan.

"Fulfilling the bounty, Stark."

And with those final words, the Stark private jet was blown to Kingdom Come.

xxxXXXxxx

His eyes were staring into the graves before him, but he refused to believe what he was witnessing. His ears heard the loud, inconsolable cries of family and friends behind him, but he ignored said evidence as well. His skin on his face felt the dampness of his never-ending tears, but he did not want to acknowledge even them. He did not want to believe. He_ rejected _the notion to believe. It was impossible, unbelievable, that his two friends – his only real friends in the world, were gone.

And yet the news was still everywhere for anyone to see, as had been the case for the past week: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were dead. Blown to pieces by their exploding jet in the middle of a storm. Their body parts scattered throughout land and sea; pieced together by their own armored suits when the emergency alarm had been set off. The armors had only been following protocol to find their masters in the case of a crisis – the armors did not know how chilling it was to retrieve _pieces_ of their bodies instead.

"Son," David Rhodes told the new agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. as he rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's time. They're waiting for you."

Rhodey's eyes traveled from the tombstones with his friends' names engraved on them to his father's saddened ones. He licked his lips, scrunched the paper he had in his hands, but nodded in acceptance of his duty. He had been given many opportunities to back out of it, if he did not feel up to it. But a man in his profession never backed out of a challenge – let alone from doing his friends one last favor: telling their story to the world.

At the insistence of the media, and their threat of making the funeral and burial a money-making scheme, Howard and Virgil had allowed a few selected reporters to attend the ceremonies. So far, the newscasters had kept their word and had been as discreet as possible in reporting the events as they unfolded. Rhodey had not even wanted them there in the first place, but once it dawned on him that this was the last time he was going to see and speak to his friends, he immediately stopped caring if the media wanted to make this a front-page news affair. James Rhodes was not going to let less-than-professional, half-assed, quick-buck-seeking journalists ruin his last moments with his friends.

In slow steps, he walked down the aisle of the moderately-sized burial site, which was jam-packed with mourners from all over the place. It was common knowledge that Team Iron Man had touched many souls and had saved many lives. But it was not until flowers and other sympathy arrangements surrounded their coffins that anyone truly realized the impact Tony and Pepper had had in people's everyday lives. They had, in their own peculiar way, affected every person they had come across, and no amount of crying, kind words or actions would ever equate to the risks the duo took for the sake of saving the world.

In the front rows of the sitting area were Virgil, Howard, Trish, Diane, Jarvis, Bambi, Happy, Roberta, David and Loretta. Rhodey recognized some of the other faces nearby: Nurse Owen, some members of the SI board, Loraine Jones, Happy's parents, and Gene Khan standing in the back; but James Rhodes was too tired and distraught to care enough to thank them for being here. He did not care who else was here; no one's presence made a difference. The fact of the matter was that Tony and Pepper had left this world, and he had not even been present to help them out. He had failed them. With all the weapons, technology and intelligence he had had at his disposition while working at S.H.I.E.L.D., he had still failed them in the end.

Rhodey walked up the stairs of the platform and reached the podium. He took the crumpled piece of paper he had carried with him for three days now, stretched it in his hands without further tearing it and then rested it on the top portion of the pedestal where the microphone stood. With his right hand, he straightened out the paper as much as possible, and when his eyes lifted to stare at the grievers waiting for him to state his eulogy, he felt the stubborn knot in his throat come back.

His gaze found the paper once more, the words losing all meaning and shape amidst the fresh tears that filled his eyes. How he had expected to do this with a straight face was beyond him. How he thought he could make it easier on him by just reading off a paper was utterly disgusting now. Nothing would make this easy for him. Nothing at all. Not his War Machine experience. Not his Air Force training or his S.H.I.E.L.D. induction time. Nothing. Absolutely nothing could make this speech easier on his broken heart and wounded soul.

But he was going to speak for them. He was going to speak for his friends. Of that much he was sure.

He neatly folded the paper one last time and dug it inside his pants pocket, near his recently upgraded and personalized _Stark Pod_ that Tony had given him as his college graduation present to replace the one he had received during Thanksgiving, years ago. He then cleared his throat of the knot of agony he had developed when he had first heard the tragic news, wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, pulled the microphone to his lips, and without thinking what he was going to say, he said the first thing that crossed his mind.

"Today's Pepper's birthday. And this year, Tony got her an island as his present for her for it."

The young man snickered bitterly, scratched his upper lip with his right hand, and then put his left hand inside the left pocket of his Air Force-issued uniform.

"Tony never knew what was too much. He was always in some sort of weird competition with himself. Last year, he built her a jetpack for her birthday, so I guess an island was the only thing he thought would top it off."

A few sad chuckles were heard in the crowd, and another handful of nods accompanied Rhodey's before he continued his speech.

"Tony, he… I thought he'd never learn to receive. He always gave and gave. Even as Iron Man, he always did give stuff away. I used to think that he just gave things away because he was rich and had too much lying around… and that's probably one of the reasons why he gave. But as we grew up together, I realized that he gave because he could – because he wanted to. Because life had taken away from him so much when growing up, that he wanted to keep others from giving up what they didn't want to give. What he had already given up himself."

Rhodey took a deep breath, stared from one grave to the other, and then stared at Virgil Potts himself.

"And then came Pepper," he paused. "And she just took and took. She took from her father information that she was not supposed to have to help Iron Man. She took from me my patience to make me do things I didn't want to do, but that I should have done anyway. She took from Tony his inability to socialize, his inability to care for himself when he worked himself to sleep. She… she took from him his inability to receive what he gave himself: affection, devotion, protection… love… She… she just took it! She took it all away, wrapped it in brighter, better things and gave it back to him, for him to actually enjoy. She made Tony really live his life. They made a new life together… and he just couldn't believe his good luck!"

Rhodey's eyes shifted from staring at Virgil Potts to staring at James Howard Stark's grave, neatly placed between his father's and mother's graves, and after swallowing hard and again clearing his throat, he talked some more.

"Pepper and Tony grew together, fought together, cried together and laughed together. And as luck would have it, they also died together. I don't… I don't think they _planned_ that last part, but I'm sure that if they could've they'd have planned that too. Well, Pepper would've made Tony plan it with her. Tony was never the planner of the two, really. He was more of a firm believer of the _Ready, Fire, Aim_ philosophy. Pepper was the strategic one, ironically enough. But it didn't matter if Tony was or wasn't something, because Tony was as much a part of Pepper's life as she was to his… and they were both as much of a part of mine as I was to them."

Rhodey let his words sink in while he gathered yet another round of courage and kept on. It was excruciating for him to talk about his friends in this way, especially after they had just gotten back together after he had been away in school for so long. He felt a little bit of a hypocrite, to say the least, stating that they were his best friends when they had hardly had the time to hang around when he had returned back in May. But even when the distance had physically separated them for years, in the end they had still been his best friends in the world.

"I don't have blood-related brothers or sisters, only close friends, so I can't compare the two. I doubt I can tell anyone who does have the two, siblings AND friends, that their relationships with their siblings are less valid than mine because I chose who I wanted to socialize with. But I _can_ say that Tony was my brother… and-and Pepper was my sister… and that when they… when they… when they… _died_, I lost them both as friends and as my family."

Rhodey's voice began to break, and with it the cries became louder in the crowd.

"And very few people in the world know how that feels… and I can only think of one more person that feels the same way I do, right now."

Rhodey's eyes landed on Happy's red ones and the two men exchanged a silent nod that spoke volumes even to people who were not sure about whom the jock was. To the masses, Harold Hogan had been Pepper Potts's bodyguard for years. To family and friends, Happy had been the annoying _little _brother she, Tony, and Rhodey never had.

"Last time Tony and Pepper redid their will to remove little James from it, the two of them wrote final words for each other," Rhodey began and took out the almost forgotten piece of paper from his pants one more time. "The idea was that if Tony passed before Pepper did, I would read this to her on his behalf. And if Pepper passed first, I'd read Pepper's words for him on her behalf. Turns out, those two jerks left us at the same time. So now I have to read them both. Thanks for that, guys!"

The moment was bittersweet, but Rhodey and the guests were able to find some humor in his broken words. He had stopped caring about his tear-stricken face a long time ago. If he did not know any better, he would have sworn that the cascading waterworks were giving him the strength he needed to finish up his eulogy for them.

"I'll read Pepper's first," Rhodey said, cleared his throat and faced Tony's grave. "Tony: Don't shoot the messenger. Rhodey didn't want to do this, but he lost a bet and it was either this, or he had to take my cousin Ana out on a date. If you're here, Ana, sorry! You missed out!"

Rhodey could not help but laugh at the introduction of the words, even if he had read them a million times before today. They were just so Pepper-like, that he could almost hear her saying the words through him.

"Anyway. If you're hearing this, Tony, it's because my time's run out. I hope it wasn't sudden and I hope it wasn't tragic. I guess I can hope it wasn't anything I didn't want it to be, but I know that, in the end, we never choose how we want to die. We can only choose how we want to live. And if there's anything you should take from today, from saying goodbye to me, it's that I chose to live my life with you, and that I don't regret doing that. Even when you drove me crazy. Even when I wanted to smack you upside the head, I still loved you. I'm sure even now I do. I still looked forward to being with you, and I was never able to picture my life without you by my side. I know you'll be mad, sad and even a little bit pissed off, but don't be like that for long. You still have lots to give to the world, Tony. You still have a world to change. And if you ever need me or feel lonely, just stop by. And for once, I promise I will only listen; not talk."

Rhodey then shifted his position ever so slightly to stare at Pepper's grave, put away the paper back into his pocket, announced that he would now read Tony's statement, and said aloud the only line Tony had written for him to say.

"It was all your doing, Pep."

The words had been short and simple, just as Tony's information relaying had always been when alive, and Rhodey did not care that half of the mourners did not understand the significance of Tony's message for Pepper. The message had been written for her to understand, not for the rest of the world to dissect. If she had been here, if she had been alive, she would have felt the void left in Rhodey's own heart at hearing Tony's message for her and at how it perfectly replied to her own after-life message for the genius. She would have definitely appreciated the depth of his words, just as those who truly knew the inventor and the redhead, currently felt.

Rhodey finally backed slowly away from the podium and walked off the platform to stand near his friends' graves to end his speech.

"See you again, someday, Tony," Rhodey said and threw the first fistful of dirt on Tony's grave, followed by the fistful on the ginger's adjacent place of burial. "And you, too, Pepper."

And with those words, Rhodey's world came crumbling down again, just as it had the first time he had learned of the fate of the inventor and the redhead – just as it always did when he realized that his friends were no more.

* * *

**A/N:** So, who do guys think will win the next Super Bowl? *shifty eyes* No? Not in the mood for chitchat? Uh… well, OK. I think I will take this opportunity to quote The Joker from one of the trailers to _Batman: Arkham City_:

"_We're coming to the end, aren't we? When you see what I've been planning all along… you'll just __**die!**__"_


	10. Epilogue

**A/N: **I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I hear rabid Pitbulls scratching at my front door, raw Brussels sprouts are being thrown at my windows, and I can't wait that long to make you happy. So here it is: the ending to _The Fifth Year_.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Epilogue**

"3, 2, 1… Aaand now."

Expectant eyes watched closely.

xxxXXXxxx

Electric blue eyes suddenly opened to be confronted by the artificial, blinding white lights above him. He could feel his pupils rapidly retracting and then dilating until they became accustomed to the sudden change in brightness intake, and even when the eye pain stopped and the quietness around him persisted, he did not move an inch; not because he did not know where he was – but because he did not known _who_ he was.

He shut his eyes again to center his thoughts, but a dense blanket of darkness filled his brain. He furrowed his brow, fisted his hands until his nails pierced his skin, and he exhaled deeply through his lips. Just when he felt he was about to mentally fall into an abyss of confusion-induced despair, a single word barely escaped his mouth.

"Tony," he sharply exhaled. "My name is… Tony."

Still with closed eyes, random voices and images pieced themselves together inside his head. They all appeared to be disconnected, unrelated even, but he knew better than that. He knew that his mind was trying to tell him something, trying to give him the tools he needed to find himself before long, and he knew the cause of it to be the sense of impending danger that was now filling his chest.

"Stark," he said with more confidence and opened his eyes. "I am Anthony Edward Stark."

He pushed his body slightly upwards on the bed by resting his weight on his bent elbows. He then ventured a cursory glance over his body and found it strange that, even though the large, white padded room he was currently in much resembled a hospital (or a sanatorium), he was not wearing a patient gown. He was barefoot and shirtless, wore a simple pair of black sweatpants, and no medical devices were attached to him – not even an IV line. In fact, there were no immediately useful electronic devices nearby either.

_How do I know that?_ He asked himself as he pushed his body to a sitting position on the bed. _How do I know there're no handy computers around?_

With his right hand, he rubbed his forehead, hoping against hope that the push on the frontal lobe would accelerate the rate at which he was remembering everything. Against all odds and all the scientific knowledge he had of how the human body worked, more pieces of the puzzle began making sense to him the more he physically stimulated his head.

_My father's name is Howard… my mom's name's Maria. She's dead. My best friend's name is Rhodey. We go to school together… or… or we did? My father… he was dead… but he's alive… my heart… it was damaged… in a plane crash – I survived a plane crash and… I… I… I am Iron Man…_

His right hand then landed on his chest and he scratched the skin there. It was warm and soft and there was no easily discernable trace that his body had ever suffered the effects of an explosion in midair inside an aircraft. He gulped hard, closed his eyes again, and held his head between his hands. After hyperventilating a few more times to catch his unstable breath, he finally pulled his hands away and gazed at them.

And his heart nearly stopped at the sight.

He stared at the ring on his left hand and, for a moment, he wanted to rip it away from his ring finger as he was confused as to where it had come from and what it meant for him. The fingers on his right hand even made it to the piece of jewelry to pull it off, but when another single word came to him and a wave of memories followed said word, he felt as if he had been hit in the gut with an anvil at short range.

"Pepper."

He shut his eyes again and covered his face with his hands. Images of the last few years of life came crashing back to him, all culminating with the last memory he had of his life: the moment he had held his wife's dead body in his hands, seconds before he had been attacked by Gene Khan, in his own plane, all in order to fulfill the bounty that had haunted the inventor and the ginger for nearly half a decade, though only known to them until a couple of years back.

_Pepper's dead. _He slammed his fist on the bed._ Why aren't I dead? Why am I still here?_

Then he remembered. He still had work to do. He still had to avenge her death and their son's. He could not die just yet. He could not let her down once more.

_I need to get out of here. I need to find a way out. I need to…_

His thoughts were cut short when he snapped open his eyes at feeling a small computer near him. He became eerily still for a moment as he pinpointed its location and purpose, and when he finally did both, he jumped off the bed towards it, but only for his legs to give up on him.

"Ugh!"

He expertly prevented his face from hitting the cold concrete floor by stopping its downward path with his arms, and it was here and now that he wholly believed and realized that Extremis was back online in him. He could literally feel it coursing in his veins, forcing his numb legs to come out of their atrophied state. He could almost hear the virus in him demand him to tear Nick Fury limb by limb for what he had done to his family all these years. For what he put Pepper and him through.

_Nobody threatens her. Nobody touches her. Nobody ends her life. Only me._

He let his entire body completely fall onto the floor at hearing his own words repeat in his mind. He briefly feared that he was going batshit crazy due to his mourning to say that if anyone was to kill the redhead, it would be him. But when he remembered that he had promised – and had failed – Pepper that he would kill her before S.H.I.E.L.D. did, he decided to put his worries to rest. For now.

_Get it together, Stark._ _You need to think with your head, not your heart._

He crawled his way up from the floor by using the bed as a crutch. After he stretched his limbs and heard his bones pop, he began scanning the room again. There was nothing there that he could use as a weapon, but he could now_ feel_ there were cameras hidden all throughout the place. Someone somewhere was watching him, like a lab rat, possibly already executing a contingency plan to stop his upcoming rampage. Against everything he knew he should live by to accomplish his revenge, he could not give two flying fucks if the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. army was on its way to where he was.

His eyes landed on the corner of the room, where he could feel a small working microchip was embedded in the wall, and began walking to it. The closer he came to it, the more he confirmed his suspicions were true: the room was not all walls – there was a hidden automatic door in it, too. He thought he would have to hack into the door's computer to get it to open. To his surprise, the door was not only unlocked, but it opened automatically when he was two feet from it, making Tony Stark stop in his tracks.

He took a moment to think about his options, to try to find any other computers around him that would help him find what was coming, but even with Extremis active in him, he could sense something was jamming his ability to feel anything beyond the room where he was. He waited a few seconds to see if the door would close or if someone would come out of it, but when neither happened and his patience began running thin, he forced himself to cross the threshold of said door.

And his heart nearly stopped for the second time in a day.

He rubbed his eyes vigorously, took small steps towards the bed before him, and just when he thought that he was staring at nothing but an illusion – a mirror image of the place he had woken up himself just minutes ago, he placed a trembling hand on her warm face… and he witnessed, in awe, as her chest rose and fell at a steady pace.

Pepper Potts was alive. And she was lying before him.

"How…?" he cleared his throat. "Pepper… I thought… I thought…"

He opened and closed his mouth to continue his rambling. But when it dawned on him that this might be a dream, he pinched his left arm hard enough to bruise his skin. He waited another long moment in stillness to see if he would suddenly wake up, but when instead he saw her eyes fluttering open and she groaned in annoyance, he nearly lost the feeling in his legs.

She opened one eye. With it, she monitored her attempt to pat around the bed to find what she was seeking. When her search proved fruitless, she opened both eyes, stared at the genius with a pout, and then groaned even louder than before.

"Did you take my blanket again, Tony? What _gives_?"

He was too shocked to say anything, and for her that was a good thing, as the time it took him to find his voice was more than enough for her to comprehend her current state. He watched as she went through almost the same experience he had just lived. He wanted nothing more than to speed it up for her, but he could not. He had to let her arrive to the same conclusion as he at her own pace. He could not force that amount of shock on anyone, least of all onto her.

"Pepper? Are you alright?"

Her eyes scanned her body and she then frowned at the black pants and white tank top she was wearing that she did not remember ever buying or owning. She sat up in bed, looked left and right to see that nothing and no one else was around, and Tony could almost see the moment her brain put everything together when her eyes widened in surprise.

"Tony!" she yelled and jumped off the bed to hug him. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"I don't know," he hugged her tightly. "I really don't know."

She pulled away from his face to say something, but he stopped her words by kissing her lips. His kiss was desperate and hungry, but it was also full of the words and emotions he could not easily verbalize and share with her right now. Just moments ago, he had feared he would never be able to kiss his redhead, to be with her, to hold her tight, ever again. Just an instant ago, he had almost broken down in mourning at remembering her passing, but yet here she was: alive and well, calling his name and seeking the comfort of his touch.

And if this was a dream or a sick joke or both, he was sure as hell going to take advantage of the opportunity he had in his hands. And he did until he could not hold his breath any more.

"Tony," she whispered his name in between deep breaths. "This… this is not the time… we need… we need…"

"To get out of here," he finished for her and she nodded, her hands still around his neck. "I know it's not the time, but I just had to do that, Pep. I'm sorry."

She opened her mouth to reprimand him on his poor timing, but when the lyrics of the song he had sung to her however long ago returned to her mind, she decided against saying anything else on the matter at all.

"Okay, so," she cleared her throat. "What's the last thing you remember?"

He let out a sound that resembled the beginning of a response, but when he realized that the news would be a shock to the ginger, he closed his mouth, held her face in his hands, and stared directly to her eyes. Pepper wrinkled her brow and dropped her shoulders in anticipation. She did not know why, but she could almost feel the bad news she knew he was about to relay to her just now.

"You died, Pepper. I-I woke up and you were dead."

"But I'm not dead."

"I know. I don't know how or why, but you're alive now. But… but after you died… on the plane, something happened. And I thought… I thought I'd died too."

"What happened?" she asked, gulped, and then forced his face to stare at hers again when he briefly looked away. "Tony, just say it, alright? What happened on the plane?"

"The plane… the plane blew up… because of Gene. Because he showed up."

"W-what?" she pulled her hands away from his face but he caught them in his own hands to keep the contact between them. "That… that can't be!"

"But it is, Pepper," he said slowly and massaged her hands. He knew that Pepper held Gene in high esteem, and even though he did not hold the man in such high regard as his wife did, he still felt even more betrayed by him than he ever had in the past. Even after living through his initial betrayal and surviving the alien invasion the rings had caused, Tony had still trusted – deep inside him – that if the time came, Gene would be the one to protect Pepper at all costs. He had not expected the man to be the cause of their demise.

The Mandarin still loved the redhead, did he not?

"It's the truth, Pepper," Tony continued. "He… he pointed his rings at me. He said he was there to fulfill the bounty."

"NO!" she shook her head. "Gene… he… he'd never hurt us, Tony! He would never…!"

"But he did, Pepper! I told him you were gone and he didn't even care!"

"He WOULD care… He… he-he… why? Why would he do this?"

"Because I asked him to," a voice behind Tony said and the inventor immediately turned around in place, pushed Pepper behind him and narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. The one-eyed man simply scoffed in return, raised his hands to either side of his head to show that he was not armed, and then gave Tony a small shrug.

"Well, I didn't really _ask _him to. He _had _to do it… or else."

"Fury," Tony all but snarled. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I live here," he said and lowered his hands. "And now, you two do as well."

"What?" Tony asked and slowly began shifting his position, making sure Pepper stayed behind him, so that he was in a location in the room where he could react quickly enough if someone else showed up from any of the other three hidden doors Extremis had just helped him find.

"What are you saying?"

"That you two are dead to the world," Nick said. "You two died on that plane. And it needs to stay that way for now. At least until the time comes for you to be Iron Man again."

"What?" Pepper asked and tried to go around the genius, but he stopped her by placing an arm in her way. The redhead stared at his arm and then at him, and when Tony shook his head at her, she sighed loudly in response.

"Fury," she began. "You made me sign a contract stating that Tony would never be Iron Man ever again. You said that if he put on the armor one more time, you would kill him where he lay."

Tony's eyebrows rose to the ceiling.

"_Kill_ me? I thought I'd spend the rest of my life on the Helicarrier."

Pepper shook her head.

"No. That's what _I_ told you, but the contract stated he would kill you. That's why I never let you put it on again. That's why I blocked you from logging in to the systems and banned you from the temple. It didn't work for long because you found out about it, but at least you never tried to put on the suit again."

"Well, that contract is now void," Fury stated. "It's no longer active, actually. Its usefulness has ended. Just as any other contract or paper I ever made you sign."

"Why?" Tony asked. "What happened that changed your mind?"

Nick Fury stared at the inventor and then at the redhead, and the moment his smug face turned somber, Tony and Pepper wanted to make it so that their question had never been asked.

"I didn't change my mind. This was _always_ the plan. It had to happen this way, because the world is going to hell very soon, Tony, and we need your help. Everyone does. And also because…"

Nick paused to give Pepper an apologetic look, stared at the floor beneath him for a second, and then finally looked up to face the woman's forthcoming wrath.

"Your son is alive."

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N:** Whoop, there it is! Many, many, many, MANY thanks to everyone who has survived the long period of time this endeavor has lasted (more than a year, I think!). I really could have not done it without you, and even though there's still the final story to come, I wanted to take a moment to say that you're all my inspiration and reason for being here. I'm going to take a break from this fandom to go finish the abandoned story I began for the show _Arrow_, but once that is complete, I will come back to make everything right. I know this last chapter and Epilogue has left you with even more questions than answers, but I promise that answers will bombard you in C1 of the next story. There will be so many answers, your heads are gonna spin!

Anyway: Enjoy the holidays, rest and drink plenty of fluids, my Faithful Readers. You don't want to miss what's to come :D


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